pfctdayelise's shared linkshttp://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/2019-05-23T12:30:23ZpfctdayeliseTidelift partners with GitHub, funds 4,000 open source projects2019-05-23T12:30:23Zdff@tidelift.com (Donald Fischer)https://blog.tidelift.com/tidelift-partners-with-github-funds-4000-open-source-projects<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/tidelift-partners-wi/7060288:5b95c3">shared this story</a>
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<p>Today, GitHub announced GitHub Sponsors, a tool to help support open source creators, with Tidelift as a launch partner.</p>
<img alt="" height="1" src="https://track.hubspot.com/__ptq.gif?a=4008838&amp;k=14&amp;r=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.tidelift.com%2Ftidelift-partners-with-github-funds-4000-open-source-projects&amp;bu=https%253A%252F%252Fblog.tidelift.com&amp;bvt=rss" style="width: 1px!important;" width="1" />Putting the Soul in Console2019-05-23T12:29:16ZAnil Dashhttp://feeds.dashes.com/~r/AnilDash/~3/buP-XMth2kw/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/putting-the-soul-in-/569:7277e0">shared this story</a>
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<img alt="Putting the Soul in Console" src="https://anildash.com/content/images/2019/05/device-interior-80.jpg" /><p>Playdate, the upcoming indie handheld gaming console from venerable software publisher Panic, is really important. But if you don't know the history of where the little company behind this little device comes from, it might be hard to understand why this isn't just another random gadget like you might see on a crowdfunding site.</p><hr /><h3 id="an-indie-scene">An Indie Scene</h3><p>About 20 years ago, there was a bit of a reckoning about what the web was going to be. The dot com era of startups were in full bloom (the crash didn't come until 2000, with 9/11 cementing the collapse of the first web bubble) but those of us who loved the internet could sense some of the joy and creativity seeping out of it as the money men took over.</p><p>A little less obvious was the reckoning going on amongst "software people". We were still making <em>programs</em> then, or software — applications wouldn't get shortened to "apps" until the iPhone took off almost a decade later. But there was a culture that almost saw making software as a craft. And a number of new web-savvy companies sprung up at the forefront of that movement, all of them decidedly <em>not</em> interested in just riding the dot com wave that was about to crash. I was a fan of them all, watching from afar as they seemed to set the standards for what was "cool" in tech — and all of them did it from outside of Silicon Valley.</p><p>Basically, in tech there was something akin to an independent music scene that one might see in a mid-sized town. Except it was geographically dispersed rather than being in one city, and it was about creating technology instead of creating songs.</p><p>In Chicago, there was 37 Signals. Brash, bold, opinionated, and trendsetting in design, the company evolved over time into today's <a href="https://basecamp.com/">Basecamp</a>, still one of the most popular project management tools. (And they spun out lots of interesting tech and tools along the way.) In New York City, we had Fog Creek Software. It, too, had opinionated and charismatic leaders talking pointedly about The Right Way to make software, and it changed immensely over the years, spinning out efforts like Trello and Stack Overflow, before finally evolving into <a href="https://glitch.com/">Glitch</a>, where I work now.</p><p>And then, in Portland, there was <a href="https://panic.com/">Panic</a>. They began with the venerable and utilitarian FTP app, Transmit, but released a wide variety of tools for developers, before transforming themselves in recent years into a broader, more ambitious software publisher that put out mainstream hits like <em>Firewatch</em>. But where these other standard-bearer companies were brash and in-your-face, Panic was always a little, well... goofy. Friendly, to be sure. And smart as hell. But there was a sense of exploration and fun and <em>play</em> to everything Panic did.</p><p>And today, we got to see one of the most exciting announcements in the two-decade history of the company: <a href="https://play.date/">Playdate</a>. You can read up on all the details elsewhere, but suffice to say, this little game machine looks like one of the most fun and joyful new efforts that <em>any</em> company has done recently, and that a tiny indie software company in Oregon has the ambition to even attempt such a thing makes it only more endearing.</p><p>Perhaps the best way of explaining why Panic is so important to so many of us is to watch Panic co-founder Cabel Sasser's wonderful, heartfelt talk at the XOXO Festival back in 2013. (It even teases the existence of Firewatch, long before it became a smash hit!)</p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8ZXWdR7RzV8?feature=oembed" width="480"></iframe><figcaption>Cabel Sasser, Panic</figcaption></figure><p>Cabel's closing exhortation to "don't waste this, keep everyone guessing, and make me proud" hit me hard in the room at that moment, and stuck with me to this day. Because Panic has done exactly that.</p><hr /><h3 id="date-of-arrival">Date of Arrival</h3><p>I'd been given a hint a while ago that something like this was coming, but the final execution is even more delightful than I'd imagined it might be. (That crank!) More importantly, it's captured the imagination of so many, and seems like the kind of thing that could inspire a new generation of creative people to think, "Hey, maybe good tech is something we can <em>make ourselves</em>." I've seen it <a href="https://medium.com/glitch/1-million-apps-on-glitch-the-creative-web-is-back-bf3ffe8053fa">happen on Glitch</a>, and now I see it happening around Playdate after just a few hours.</p><p>That idea, that maybe things like our gaming devices or the websites we visit should be created by people we know and like, instead of giant faceless companies, seems more essential than ever. We would never settle for replacing all of our made-with-love, locally-grown, mom's recipe home cooking with factory-farmed fast food, even if sometimes convenience demands we consume the latter. And we shouldn't compromise any less on making sure that some of the time we spend playing games with each other, and delighting in the promise of technology, comes from people who've been diligently working for years to make well-sourced, organically grown, made-with-love technology.</p><p>I don't know if Playdate will succeed in the market. I don't know what kind of risk it represents for Panic as a company. But I know that people see this cute little device, and are reminded that they used to get <em>excited</em> when they saw cool new technology, instead of wondering how it would warp their reality, or steal their information. Here's hoping for a return to tech that's fun, that's thoughtful, and that's created with a little bit of soul.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-width-full"><img alt="Putting the Soul in Console" class="kg-image" src="https://anildash.com/content/images/2019/05/hipertextual-playdate-nueva-consola-portatil-que-cabe-tu-bolsillo-2019045445.jpg" /></figure>
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</div><p></p><p></p><p></p><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AnilDash/~4/buP-XMth2kw" width="1" />Understanding real-world concurrency bugs in Go2019-05-22T06:38:12Zadriancolyerhttps://blog.acolyer.org/2019/05/17/understanding-real-world-concurrency-bugs-in-go/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
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<p><a href="https://songlh.github.io/paper/go-study.pdf">Understanding real-world concurrency bugs in Go</a> Tu, Liu et al., <em>ASPLOS&#8217;19</em></p>
<p>The design of a programming (or data) model not only makes certain problems easier (or harder) to solve, but also makes certain classes of bugs easier (or harder) to create, detect, and subsequently fix. Today’s paper choice studies concurrency mechanisms in Go. Before we dive in, it might be interesting to pause for a moment and consider your own beliefs about Go, which may well include some of the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Go was explicitly designed to make concurrent programming easier and less error-prone</li>
<li>Go makes concurrent programming easier and less error-prone</li>
<li>Go programs make heavy use of message passing via channels, which is less error prone than shared memory synchronisation</li>
<li>Go programs have less concurrency bugs</li>
<li>Go’s built-in deadlock and data race detectors will catch any (most?)<br />
bugs you do let slip into your code</li>
</ul>
<p>The first of those statements is true. For the remaining statements, you can use the data from this research to re-evaluate how strongly you want to hold those opinions&#8230;</p>
<blockquote><p>We perform the first systematic study on concurrency bugs in real Go programs. We studied six popular Go software [projects] including Docker, Kubernetes, and gRPC. We analyzed 171 concurrency bugs in total, with more than half of them caused by non-traditional, Go-specific problems. Apart from root causes of these bugs, we also studied their fixes, performed experiments to reproduce them, and evaluated them with two publicly-available Go bug detectors.</p></blockquote>
<p>The six applications studied were Docker, Kubernetes, etcd, CockroachDB, gRPC, and BoltDB, so that’s a lot of important real-world Go-code right there.</p>
<p><img alt="" height="255" src="https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/golang-bugs-table-1.jpeg?w=520&#038;h=255" width="520" /></p>
<p>The analysis begins by studying how these applications actually make use of Go concurrency primitives, before going on to study concurrency related bugs from their issue trackers. These bugs are categorised on two main dimensions: the observed behaviour (blocking or non-blocking), and the type of concurrency primitive that is the cause (shared memory or message passing). Let’s begin with a very quick recap of the main concurrency mechanisms in Go.</p>
<h3>Concurrency in Go</h3>
<blockquote><p>A major design goal of Go is to improve traditional multi-threaded programming languages and make concurrent programming easier and less error-prone. For this purpose, Go centers its multi-threading design around two principles: 1) making threads (called goroutines) lightweight and easy to create and 2) using explicit messaging (via channels) to communicate across threads.</p></blockquote>
<p>Goroutines are lightweight user-level threads (‘green’ threads). A goroutine is created by adding the keyword <code>go</code> before a function call, including to an anonymous function. Local variables declared before an anonymous function are accessible within it and potentially shared. Channels are used to send data and states across goroutines, and may be buffered or unbuffered. When using unbuffered channels a goroutine will block on send (receive) until another goroutine is receiving (sending). The <code>select</code> statement allows a goroutine to wait on multiple channel operations, if more than one case is valid Go selects one at random. Go also has traditional synchronisation primitives including mutexes, condition variables, and atomic variables.</p>
<h3>How Go concurrency primitives are used in practice</h3>
<p>The six applications make relatively heavy use of goroutines, especially with anonymous functions.</p>
<p><img alt="" height="255" src="https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/golang-bugs-table-2.jpeg?w=480&#038;h=255" width="480" /></p>
<p>An especially interesting comparison can be made in the case of gRPC, which has both a C implementation and a Go implementation. The following table shows the <em>ratio</em> of the number of goroutines created in gRPC-Go compared to gRPC-C, when processing the same number of requests.</p>
<p><img alt="" height="195" src="https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/golang-bugs-table-3.jpeg?w=480&#038;h=195" width="480" /></p>
<p>In this comparison goroutines tend to shorter lifetimes than the threads created in the C version, but are created much more frequently. This more frequent use of goroutines is to be expected as its something the Go language encourages.</p>
<p>If we look at the use of concurrency primitives across the board in all of the applications, one more surprising finding is that shared memory synchronisation operations are still used more often than message passing:</p>
<p><img alt="" height="214" src="https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/golang-bugs-table-4.jpeg?w=520&#038;h=214" width="520" /></p>
<p>The most frequently used message-passing primitive is <code>chan</code>, responsible for between 18.5% and 43% of all usages. So we have a situation in which traditional shared memory communication is still heavily used, <em>in conjunction</em> with significant amounts of message passing primitives. From a bug perspective that means we have all the exciting bug possibilities that shared memory communication affords, together with all of the bug possibilities message passing affords, <em>and</em> bugs caused be the interaction of these two styles!</p>
<h3>Go concurrency bugs</h3>
<p>The authors searched the GitHub commit histories of the applications to find commits fixing concurrency bugs (3,211). From these 171 were randomly selected for study.</p>
<p>Bugs are categorised into blocking bugs and non-blocking bugs. A blocking bug occurs when one or more goroutines are unintentionally stuck in their execution and cannot move forward. This definition is broader deadlocks and can include situations with no circular waits, but instead waits for resources that no other goroutines supply. 85 of the bugs were blocking, and 86 were non- blocking.</p>
<p>Bugs are also categorised in a second dimension according to whether they relate to shared memory protection (105 bugs) or message passing (66 bugs).</p>
<p><img alt="" height="207" src="https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/golang-bugs-table-5.jpeg?w=480&#038;h=207" width="480" /></p>
<h3>Blocking bugs</h3>
<p>Looking at the blocking bugs first of all, 42% of these are related to shared memory, and 58% are related to message passing. Recall as well that shared memory primitives are more widely used than message passing primitives.</p>
<blockquote><p>Contrary to the common belief that message passing is less error-prone, more blocking bugs in our studied Go applications are caused by wrong message passing than by wrong shared memory protection.</p></blockquote>
<p>The shared memory based bugs include all the usual suspects, with a few new twists due to Go’s implementation of RWMutex and Wait (see §5.1.1).</p>
<p>For message-passing related bugs, many of these are due to missing sends or receives on channels, or closing channels.</p>
<blockquote><p>All blocking bugs caused by message passing are related to Go’s new message passing semantics like channel. They can be difficult to detect especially when message passing operations are used together with other synchronization primitives. Contrary to common belief, message passing can cause more blocking bugs than shared memory.</p></blockquote>
<p>Investigating the fixes for these bugs showed that once understood, the fixes are fairly simple, and the type of fix is correlated with the bug cause. This suggests that fully-automated or semi-automated tools for fixing blocking bugs in Go may be a promising direction.</p>
<p><img alt="" height="249" src="https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/golang-bugs-table-7.jpeg?w=520&#038;h=249" width="520" /></p>
<p>Go’s built-in deadlock detector was only able to detect two of the 21 blocking bugs reproduced in the study.</p>
<h3>Non-blocking bugs</h3>
<p>More non-blocking bugs are caused by misuse of shared memory primitives than message passing. About half of these are caused by ‘traditional’ shared memory bug patterns. There are also several bugs caused by a lack of understanding of Go language features, especially the sharing of local variables declared before an anonymous function used in a goroutine, and the semantics of WaitGroups.</p>
<p><img alt="" height="284" src="https://adriancolyer.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/golang-bugs-table-9.jpeg?w=520&#038;h=284" width="520" /></p>
<blockquote><p>New programming models and new libraries that Go introduced to ease multi-thread programming can themselves be the cause of more concurrency bugs.</p></blockquote>
<p>While message-passing based non-blocking bugs were comparatively less common, &#8220;<em>the intricate design of message passing in a language can cause these bugs to be especially hard to find when combining with other language-specific features</em>.&#8221;</p>
<p>Interestingly, programmers fixing bugs caused by misuse of shared memory primitives showed a preference for using message passing to do so.</p>
<p>Go’s data race detector was able to detect half of the reproduced non-blocking bugs in the study.</p>
<h3>Wrapping up</h3>
<blockquote><p>Surprisingly, our study shows that it is as easy to make concurrency bugs with message passing as with shared memory, sometimes even more.</p></blockquote>
<p>Programmers have to have a clear understanding of:</p>
<ul>
<li>goroutine creation with anonymous functions</li>
<li>the usage of buffered vs unbuffered channels</li>
<li>the non-determinism of waiting for multiple channel operations using select</li>
<li>correct use of the special library <code>time</code></li>
</ul>
<blockquote><p>Although each of these features were designed to ease multi-threaded programming, in reality, it is difficult to write correct Go programs with them.</p></blockquote>
<p>I regret that I didn’t have space in this write-up to include the many illustrative code samples highlighting details of bugs. If you’re actively developing in Go, the full paper is well worth a read to study them.</p><br><br><img src="https://1.gravatar.com/avatar/a795b4f89a6d096f314fc0a2c80479c1?s=96&d=identicon&r=G" />coworker whispers a daily affirmation to me, do I have to tell people I met with about my strep throat, and more2019-05-22T06:05:07ZAsk a Managerhttps://www.askamanager.org/2019/05/coworker-whispers-a-daily-affirmation-to-me-do-i-have-to-tell-people-i-met-with-about-my-strep-throat-and-more.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/coworker-whispers-a-/6233987:dfe1b1">shared this story</a>
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begin your own whisper campaign of “you’re magnificent” 😭
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<p>It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…</p>
<p><strong>1. My coworker whispers a daily affirmation to me</strong></p>
<p><em>I work in a fairly open plan corporate setting. A new colleague joined another team about a month ago, and passes my station daily on his way to see his boss. Every single morning he briefly stops, wait for me to make eye contact, whispers “You’re amazing” to me, and heads on his way.</em></p>
<p><em>It’s flattering but odd, and can take me out of my headspace. I am incredibly busy (which I don’t expect a new person on another team to appreciate), and he has probably been told that I will be a useful resource to him &#8212; which is true, if my workload allows. Some mornings I’ve turned it into a quick chat (“How are you settling in? “Plans for the weekend?&#8221;) &#8212; enough to learn he is happily married and some of his hobbies. This interaction comes across more as pleasant-but-awkward coworker rather than creepy person.</em></p>
<p><em>I am not aware of him doing it to others: he passes about a dozen workstations and another dozen offices on this route, and he definitely doesn&#8217;t do it to the ~one third that I can see/hear.</em></p>
<p><em>I’m generally cheerful and approachable, have a reputation for knowing the answer to whatever question people have, and always being busy (it’s true, and I’m addressing that with my bosses separately). I have a very prominent workstation on a corner, right outside our CEO&#8217;s office, so many infer I am somewhat important.</em></p>
<p><em>Am I doing any damage letting this daily affirmation continue? I think some mornings I likely haven’t looked up being buried in some task, and he hasn&#8217;t interrupted me so I appreciate that. My neighbor is utterly baffled by it, but I don’t think it’s affecting her work much. It is building an easy opportunity to talk about work but our paths won’t cross too frequently task-wise &#8212; and if they do it will be one way, generating some work for me rather than them.</em></p>
<p>This would creep me out — the whispering, ugh! — but I’m forcing myself to take you at your word that your vibe is that he’s being awkward rather than creepy. And I can actually picture this type — extremely cheerful, does things that would be smarmy from someone else but just seems … wholesomely weird from him?</p>
<p>I mean, who knows, maybe it’s a bizarre Machiavellian maneuver to set you up to feel a higher degree of obligation to his work requests, although it doesn’t sound like he’ll have many for you — but it could also be 100% a response to you seeming like a gatekeeper to the CEO. Either way, ew.</p>
<p>But I don’t think there’s any reason you have to put a stop to it. It doesn’t sound like it’s bugging you too much — it’s just a weird thing that can provide mild entertainment for you and your neighbor. That said, if you ever do want it to stop, you could always respond with cheerful briskness, “Okay, that’s enough of that!” or “You’re going to need to wait for me to actually earn that” … or begin your own whisper campaign of “you’re magnificent,” etc.</p>
<p><strong>2. Do I need to tell people I met with that I later developed strep throat?</strong></p>
<p><em>A significant portion of my job is shuttling clients around to important meetings with investors. This involves a lot of shaking hands, etc., where there&#8217;s plenty of opportunity to spread disease. After one round of such meetings last week, I was suddenly struck ill (103 degree fever, difficult to talk, etc). A day later I managed to make it to the doctor where I was diagnosed with strep throat. Not fatal, obviously, but not much fun and quite contagious. Do I reach out to the parties I met with and let them know so that they can take steps to avoid spreading the illness themselves (coworkers, kids, etc.)?</em></p>
<p>I’m interested to hear other opinions on this, but I don’t think you need to. According to a bunch of medical sources that Google led me to, strep throat symptoms usually develop within two to five days after someone was exposed. You sent this to me on Friday of last week, which means that the meeting you were at “last week” was the previous week — meaning you’re already outside that time window. (I’m far from an expert on infectious disease though, so let’s see what others have to say.)</p>
<p><strong>3. Asking for work before I start</strong></p>
<p><em>I recently got the job I’ve wanted for a few months at a new company. I don’t start until mid June, but am very excited, and want to do some prep work before I start (part of my job involves creating structure around strategy and data). Would it be too much to reach out to my manager and ask them if they had any documents or guiding thoughts as prep work for the job ahead? I should mention I’ve already signed with them and agreed to a start date.</em></p>
<p>If you really want to, it’s fine to ask if there’s anything you can read to start preparing before your first day, but I’d leave it at that. Don’t ask for guiding thoughts or other prep work, and be prepared for the answer to be that nope, they’ll get you everything you need once you start. It’s great that you’re enthusiastic and want to come in prepared, but (a) you don’t work there yet and you shouldn’t give away your time for free and (b) your new manager may not have the time to put anything together for you before you officially start anyway.</p>
<p><strong>4. A company expedited my interview, but then said they couldn’t compete with my other offer deadline</strong></p>
<p><em>So after months of job hunting in the financial sector, I received an offer. Not the job or the direction I want to go in, but it’s a start. While reviewing this offer, I also was asked to come in for a second round, final interview with my preferred other company. They expedited my interview because I was transparent about my other job offer deadline. I had the final interview and received an email from HR saying they would not be able to compete with the other deadline since I was the first person they met and they want to follow through on the process.</em></p>
<p><em>I made the choice to decline the first offer due to it not being a good long-term career decision. I replied with this information briefly to my preferred company, asking to still be considered. Am I just not seeing the “no” here? No response back yet but it hasn’t even been a day. Thoughts?</em></p>
<p>When a company expedites your interview because they know you have another offer, that means they think you might be strong enough they’d want to snatch you up before the other company does. But when you do that expedited interview and then they tell you, “Well, actually, we need to stick with our original process and timeline so won’t have an answer for you before the deadline on your other offer,” that means that they decided from your interview that they’re not interested enough to do said snatching. Sometimes that means they learned from the interview that you’re a definite no for them, and sometimes it means you’re still a possible yes but they’re not interested enough to short-circuit the rest of their process. To be honest, it’s not great news — reading between the lines, they’re not especially enthused about you, at least not right now.</p>
<p>They might get back to you and tell you they’ll be glad to keep you in their process, or they might tell you they don’t think it’s the right match, or they might not respond at all (which is rude but common). But it’s fine that you asked to stay in their process. Now it’s just in their court.</p>
<p><strong>5. Letting candidates pick between Skype or in-person interviews</strong></p>
<p><em>I&#8217;m on a hiring committee for the first time, in a job I&#8217;m fairly new at. My field has a notoriously dismal job market, and we have many strong candidates who all know they are vying for scarce opportunities.</em></p>
<p><em>While making plans for the second round of interviews, the issue of travel funds came up. There’s no guarantee we will be able to pay for candidates&#8217; travel, and several committee members suggested that in the future we offer candidates the chance to choose between Skyping in for the second interview or traveling. The in-person interview includes a tour, a chance to meet with clients, a presentation by the candidate, and a meal with the committee. I don&#8217;t believe a Skype interview is an equitable replacement, and I&#8217;m worried that offering this choice will privilege those that can afford travel, or put people in the awkward position of telling a hiring committee that they are trying to impress that they can&#8217;t afford travel. I&#8217;m also worried that to avoid that, or out of fear of looking disinterested, candidates will spend money they don&#8217;t have on travel, and we&#8217;re back to the original problem but will have put the responsibility on the candidate by saying it was their choice.</em></p>
<p><em>I suggested that the only equitable solution was to pay for everyone&#8217;s travel, or have everyone skype, but that didn&#8217;t gain much traction. My colleagues are thoughtful people who are sensitive to issues of equity, so I&#8217;m second-guessing myself. Am I off-base?</em></p>
<p>Nope, you’re right. You should pay for everyone’s travel or have everyone Skype for this round. I do think you need to see your finalists in-person at some point, but maybe that means you need a third round in the process just for your top two or three finalists.</p>
<p>That said, companies that don’t pay for candidates’ interview travel do typically do what your committee member suggested — leave it up to the candidates, knowing some will pay to fly themselves in and others will not. But if you care about equity (and it sounds like you do), that’s not a solution you should pursue because it means you’re likely to disadvantage candidates based on their finances.</p>
<div class="crp_related "><h5>You may also like:</h5><ul><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2015/11/how-to-deal-with-an-unresponsive-coworker.html"><span class="crp_title">how to deal with an unresponsive coworker</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2014/03/when-a-coworker-missed-a-deadline-i-told-her-its-a-good-thing-shes-pretty.html"><span class="crp_title">when a coworker missed a deadline, I told her it&#8217;s a good thing she&#8217;s pretty</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2014/11/my-employee-constantly-interrupts-me-with-unnecessary-updates-and-questions.html"><span class="crp_title">my employee constantly interrupts me with unnecessary updates and questions</span></a></li></ul><div class="crp_clear"></div></div><p><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2019/05/coworker-whispers-a-daily-affirmation-to-me-do-i-have-to-tell-people-i-met-with-about-my-strep-throat-and-more.html" rel="nofollow">coworker whispers a daily affirmation to me, do I have to tell people I met with about my strep throat, and more</a> was originally published by Alison Green on <a href="https://www.askamanager.org" rel="nofollow">Ask a Manager</a>.</p>my coworker wants the company to pay for a week-long sex romp with his fired girlfriend2019-05-22T06:03:20ZAsk a Managerhttps://www.askamanager.org/2019/05/my-coworker-wants-the-company-to-pay-for-a-trip-with-his-fired-girlfriend.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/my-coworker-wants-th/6233987:d2e727">shared this story</a>
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<p>A reader writes:</p>
<p><em>I work in a nonprofit recovery organization and as the department admin, I schedule a lot of the staff for the conferences and travel and handle the receipts.</em></p>
<p><em>My office is in a tense space right now. Several of our staff were fired last month due to a very big, very embarrassing, very avoidable HIPAA breach and one of the people fired was our assistant director&#8217;s girlfriend (yeah, he was openly dating a subordinate.). People took sides, management was split. HR is doing a lot of mediation. Just send in the clowns and it&#8217;s a circus.</em></p>
<p><em>Where do I even start documenting and covering my butt with this nuclear bomb I found on my desk this morning?</em></p>
<p><em>I don&#8217;t report to the assistant director, but he is well-liked, hence why nobody really looked twice at him dating a subordinate. While processing his receipts from a training in a big flashy fun city last week, there are multiple charges to his room for food for meals for two, liquor bills which aren&#8217;t allowed on company cards, and he upgraded the hotel to include a couple&#8217;s package and the hotel called and advised me of a cleaning charge because of some romantic &#8220;paraphernalia and stains&#8221; were left behind (oh barf).</em></p>
<p><em>All told, the bill came out to three grand, which is $1,800 more than the allowed budget for the trip. He also submitted a very wonky looking reimbursement request for a second plane ticket that he had to pay for out of pocket, his reasoning being I booked the flight wrong (it&#8217;s his girlfriend&#8217;s ticket). There are pictures of them all over social media on the plane and in the hotel room and doing touristy things all week. He definitely took his girlfriend, who happens to have been fired from our company, on an expensive and kinky-sounding vacation he thinks we&#8217;re going to pay for.</em></p>
<p><em>I have to report any staff misuse of the company cards to my boss immediately. My boss is very good friends with the associate director and can&#8217;t look past his shortcomings and managerial misconduct because of it. He&#8217;s going to blow it off and accounts receivable is going to want a full account for what was spent and why. I know I can&#8217;t be held accountable for him being disgusting but I&#8217;m just sick of the way this department is being run after the last few months of debauchery. This used to be a great place to work.</em></p>
<p>Good lord.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s yet another reason why managers really shouldn’t be friends with their employees, because when one of them has a paraphernalia-fueled sex romp on the company dime, people get nervous about reporting it.</p>
<p>Of course, this is a company that apparently let a manager openly date a subordinate, so I suppose a manager&#8217;s too-close-to-be-objective friendship isn&#8217;t surprising.</p>
<p>Anyway. If you weren’t required to report this to your boss/the associate director’s friend, I’d suggest just reporting it all to whoever manages your finances and letting them sort it out. But since you’re required to talk to the boss/friend, just be very, very factual. For example: “Bob submitted receipts for $1,800 over the maximum limit approved for the trip. Here are his receipts. It looks like some are for things we&#8217;re not permitted to approve, like liquor, meals for two, a couple’s package at the hotel, and a special cleaning charge because of damage to the room. He’s also submitting for a second plane ticket and said it was because the first was wrong — but the first ticket was used and the second was for the same flight <em>(or whatever is true here)</em>, so we can’t reimburse the second. Based on these expenses and the photos he’s posted on social media, it looks like he had his girlfriend join him, which I assume we’re fine with as long as we&#8217;re not paying her expenses. I’m passing all this along to Finance to sort out and realized I’m supposed to give you a heads-up as well.”</p>
<p>In fact, you might fill in Finance <i>before</i> you talk with your boss, so that the information is out there and he can’t order you not to send it to them. (And send it to the highest-up person on that team; you want someone with real authority seeing it.) If your boss is upset that you’ve already sent it to them, you can express confusion — “They’re the ones who handle reimbursements so I thought I’d need to send it all over to them like I normally would?”</p>
<p>If you get the sense that your boss is going to blow this off, you have the option of escalating it to someone with more authority than him (or possibly to HR, if they’re decent and have either power of their own or power to get the ear of someone else). Whether or not to do that depends on how vindictive your boss is or isn’t, as well as how fed up you are. But you can get some cover by just being matter-of-fact about your actions, meaning that you act as if <em>of course</em> you&#8217;re flagging it for others &#8212; you&#8217;re not acting out of malice or with an agenda, you&#8217;re just dutifully fulfilling your obligations as <em>of course</em> the company would expect you to.</p>
<div class="crp_related "><h5>You may also like:</h5><ul><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2015/04/i-heard-my-coworker-having-sex-on-a-business-trip.html"><span class="crp_title">I heard my coworker having sex on a business trip</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2014/03/should-a-resigning-employee-have-to-reimburse-us-for-costs-of-a-future-conference-he-signed-up-for.html"><span class="crp_title">should a resigning employee have to reimburse us for costs of a future conference he signed up for?</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2014/09/the-best-day-of-the-week-to-apply-for-a-job-email-accounts-for-former-employees-and-more.html"><span class="crp_title">the best day of the week to apply for a job, email accounts for former employees, and more</span></a></li></ul><div class="crp_clear"></div></div><p><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2019/05/my-coworker-wants-the-company-to-pay-for-a-trip-with-his-fired-girlfriend.html" rel="nofollow">my coworker wants the company to pay for a week-long sex romp with his fired girlfriend</a> was originally published by Alison Green on <a href="https://www.askamanager.org" rel="nofollow">Ask a Manager</a>.</p>our traditionally male company has an annual golf trip — but our new female employees don’t play2019-05-16T00:11:05ZAsk a Managerhttps://www.askamanager.org/2019/05/our-traditionally-male-company-has-an-annual-golf-trip-but-our-new-female-employees-dont-play.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/our-traditionally-ma/6233987:441f3f">shared this story</a>
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<p>A reader writes:</p>
<p><em>Our smallish family-owned business has been taking our sales team on a long weekend golf trip on and off for many years/decades. It is intended to be a reward/retreat type trip, and little if any business is discussed when we are there. Mostly beer drinking, side betting golf, in a beach town with multiple golf courses and a long weekend. Many of our team have young children and the weekend getaway is well received and appreciated, and talked about throughout the year. The sales team of 10-15 people in two branches are the only ones eligible for the trip because they are paid via commission, and therefore do not receive bonuses under our pay structure.</em></p>
<p><em>Historically, all or very nearly all of our sales team have been male, and golfers. The managers are all golfers and our company is based in a town where golf is a big deal (major tournament held here every year, we sponsor many charity golf tournaments, customers and vendors regularly take our sales members golfing). This year, we have three female employees eligible for the trip who do not play golf. In the past if we had a male sales rep who did not play golf, he might come on the trip and ride in a cart, and just drink beer or observe, or might elect to not attend at all. We play a “best ball” style game where you really do not have to play well at all to participate.</em></p>
<p><em>So we are currently trying to decide how to handle this year’s trip, without ostracizing anyone and also without taking away a much appreciated day off and benefit. I am relatively new, but the rest of the managers have been here for decades. We usually take a Friday off and return on Sunday. Their proposed options include:</em></p>
<p><em>&#8211; Providing a separate cabin for the women, and offering them money (equivalent to the golf package spent on the men) to take a day trip and eat/shop/day trip in a nearby major destination city while the men are golfing.</em></p>
<p><em>&#8211; Providing them the separate cabin, but no other plan options (basically ride along on the course, and not miss the fellowship aspect of the trip). One of the women already proposed being a “cart girl” passing out beers, but I don’t think the other women would appreciate such a plan.</em></p>
<p><em>&#8211; Offering a cash benefit, based on the value of the trip, and the day off, as an alternative to attending. The proposal was based on the assumption that some or all of them may not want to attend, but those that did want to could. But here is the catch &#8212; this would not be offered to the men. It has always been jokingly referred to as a mandatory trip, but it seems every year one or two people cannot attend. They are not expected to work that day but have never been given additional benefits.</em></p>
<p><em>Any thoughts on this? I feel like offering all three would cover our bases, but it doesn’t address the fact that if you are not actively playing golf in this tournament style weekend, you will be missing time with managers and owners of the company. In the past none of these options were offered to men who did not play golf. I am a little nervous any time gender issues come up at work and feel like this situation is ripe to strike out with at least one of our female employees.</em></p>
<p>I think your golf trip is going to have to change. Maybe not this year, but for future years.</p>
<p>Here’s the thing: You cannot, as a business, host trips that men attend and women don’t. That’s true even if the women are invited but choose not to go. If you find that you’re sponsoring something that women generally don’t want to participate in while the men do, you need another plan.</p>
<p>The push-back to that is, of course, “But other people like it! Why should they have to lose a trip that they look forward to and which historically has been a fun thing we’ve rallied around?”</p>
<p>And the answer to that is: Because you’re a workplace and you need to ensure that the activities you sponsor aren’t segregated by gender, even if it happens voluntarily. As an employer, there are priorities above “let people have fun,&#8221; like ensuring that women aren’t alienated and that they have equal access to networking opportunites and to your leadership. And &#8220;let people have fun&#8221; is also trumped by your organization&#8217;s obligation to follow the law — because this kind of thing has led to sex discrimination lawsuits. In fact, there’s a long, well established history of women being excluded professionally through socializing of exactly this kind of thing (golf is probably the most common example that comes up, in fact). At a minimum your company is going to appear remarkably oblivious to that deeply entrenched history — but it also risks actual legal problems sprouting from it.</p>
<p>And yes, the push-back to that is, “Well, the women could participate if they wanted to! They’re choosing not to.”</p>
<p>The answer to that is: Yes. They’re choosing not to. So it’s on your company to see that and change its practices accordingly, so that it’s not organizing networking opportunites that only men are responding to. The intent isn’t what matters here — the actual outcome is.</p>
<p>To respond to the specifics in your letter: Your instincts are right that <span style="text-decoration: underline;">under no circumstances</span> should anyone suggest the women be “cart girls.”</p>
<p>You also shouldn’t offer to send women shopping while the men golf. That’s playing right into sexist stereotypes. You can’t do that.</p>
<p>And you can’t offer the women cash and a day off while not offering that to men because it’s illegal to pass out perks based on sex.</p>
<p>Nor should you be hosting a trip where the men golf and network while they women get a cabin but miss out on the rest (again, even if it’s their choice).</p>
<p>So, what do you do? Honestly, I think you&#8217;ll need to phase out the trip and instead find things that both men and women are up for participating in. That’s your responsibility as a business. And yes, you’re going to get some complaints, but complaints are not a reason not to do the correct thing. You can frame it as, &#8220;As our staff has grown, we&#8217;re hearing that there are other things people would enjoy doing.&#8221; (In fact, it might be worth surveying your staff about what activities they&#8217;d enjoy, or whether they want off-hours activities at at all. And who knows, you might find out that this trip isn&#8217;t the first choice for all of the men either.)</p>
<p>Assuming it’s too late to do that for this year, though, you should make the trip voluntary for <i>everyone</i>, not just the women, and give everyone the choice of the trip or the time off. And you should consider planning something else for this year that will have broader appeal (ideally scheduled during work hours so people don’t have to give up their weekends to attend).</p>
<p>Does it suck for people who liked and looked forward to this trip each year? Yes! It does. And it&#8217;s still what you need to do if you want to be a workplace that&#8217;s inclusive (and legally sound).</p>
<div class="crp_related "><h5>You may also like:</h5><ul><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2016/05/my-injury-is-preventing-me-from-going-on-a-company-cruise-and-they-want-me-to-pay-them-back-for-my-ticket.html"><span class="crp_title">my injury is preventing me from going on a company cruise — and my company wants me to pay them back for my ticket</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2017/09/my-husband-doesnt-want-me-to-go-on-a-business-trip-to-vegas.html"><span class="crp_title">my husband doesn&#8217;t want me to go on a business trip to Vegas</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2018/07/organizing-an-all-men-beach-weekend-for-coworkers-is-gossip-beneficial-at-work-and-more.html"><span class="crp_title">organizing an all-men beach weekend for coworkers, is gossip beneficial at work, and more</span></a></li></ul><div class="crp_clear"></div></div><p><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2019/05/our-traditionally-male-company-has-an-annual-golf-trip-but-our-new-female-employees-dont-play.html" rel="nofollow">our traditionally male company has an annual golf trip &#8212; but our new female employees don&#8217;t play</a> was originally published by Alison Green on <a href="https://www.askamanager.org" rel="nofollow">Ask a Manager</a>.</p>OPP (Other People's Problems)2019-05-13T00:04:56ZCamille Fournier (noreply@blogger.com)http://www.elidedbranches.com/2019/05/opp-other-peoples-problems.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/opp-other-peoples-pr/1420881:46bc77">shared this story</a>
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<div class="graf graf--p" name="5e72">A hard lesson for me over the past several years of my career has been figuring out how to pick my battles. I’ve seen many friends and colleagues struggle with this as well: how do you know when to involve yourself in something, and how do you know when to stay out of it? How do you figure out where the line is?</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="5e72"><br /></div><h3>The setup</h3><div class="graf graf--p" name="4a65">If you’re reading this looking for advice, you’re probably a go-getter. You consider yourself a responsible person, who cares deeply about doing things right. Your care may be focused on software and systems, or on people and organizations, or on processes and policies, or all of the above.</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="97dd"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="97dd">This attitude has probably served you well in your career, especially those of you who have been working for a number of years. You’ve been described as having a “strong sense of ownership,” and people admire your ability to think broadly about problems. You try to think about the whole system around a problem, and that helps you come up with robust solutions that address the real challenges and not just the symptoms.</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="e8b1"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="e8b1">And yet, despite these strengths, you’re often frustrated. You see so many problems, and when you identify those problems, people sometimes get mad. They don’t take your feedback well. They don’t want to let you help fix the situation. Your peers rebuff you, your manager doesn’t listen to you, your manager’s manager nods sympathetically and then proceeds to do nothing about it.</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="5626"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="5626">That kind of grinding frustration can wear you down over time. I know, because I’ve been there. I left a cushy big company job because I saw too many things I felt powerless to fix. When I got into management, I figured that I would have the power to make things right. Then I thought that when I became the leader of all of engineering I could do it. Then I thought that when I became an executive I would be able to do it. Chasing that dream of being able to fix all the things contributed to me feeling exhausted, and dare I say a bit burned out, when I finally decided to leave my CTO gig.</div><h3><br /></h3><h3>Escaping the&nbsp;Trap</h3><div class="graf graf--p" name="94ab">I’ve come to realize that there isn’t a job where you can fix all the things. It is true that founders have immense ability to set direction and culture, but trying to control everything happening in a company causes many other problems that are outside of the scope of this essay. Assuming that you are not a founder, you should just take a minute to really let it sink in: there is no place you can go where you can control everything and fix all the problems, no matter how much you get promoted. There’s always going to be something you can’t fix.</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="83ed"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="83ed">So how do you decide where to exert your energy?</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="3b14"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong"><br /></strong></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="3b14"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Step one: Figure out who owns this problem</strong></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="a051"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="a051">If it’s your job (or the job of someone who reports to you), great. Go to it! Tend your own garden first. Make systems that are as robust as you believe systems should be. Follow processes that you believe are effective and efficient. If you are not leading by example, you have to start there. Stop reading now and go fix the things!</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="fe38"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="fe38">If there’s no clear owner, do you know why? Is it just because no one has gotten around to doing it, or has the organization specifically decided not to do it? If no one’s gotten around to doing it, can you do it yourself? Can your org do it, just within your org?</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="5ce3"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="5ce3">If it’s someone else’s job, how much does it affect your day to day life? Does it bother you because they’re <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">doing it wrong</em>, or does it actually, really, significantly make it harder for you to do your job? Really? That significantly? There’s no work around at all? If it is not directly affecting your job, drop it!</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="d0fd"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong"><br /></strong></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="d0fd"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Step two: Talk to all the people</strong></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="4398"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="4398">If you don’t clearly own the problem, you need to talk to people. If you feel tired by the idea of talking to all people, stop! This is a sign that you should not pick this battle! It’s already draining you and you haven’t even started on the path to addressing it. It is probably a good idea to just try to let it go, or at best, tell your manager that you worried about whatever it is, and then let it go.</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="a513"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="a513">If you’re ok with talking to all the people, then get out there and get a sense of the problem beyond you and your team. You can do this formally, with a document that you prepare addressing the problem as you see it, or informally, as a series of user interviews. You will need this information to make a case to fix it, and to make a plan for how to fix it. Does the information you’ve gathered from others make you think that perhaps this problem really isn’t as important as you first thought it was? Is someone else already solving this problem? Great! Let it go!</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="a933"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="a933">If you know who should own this, you need to give them a chance to fix it. Which means you need to come with examples of how the problem is impacting you or your team. Missing those examples? Stop! This is not your problem to fix! Don’t go bringing problems based on people from other teams complaining to you. Those teams need to bring up the problems themselves. If you must, tell their manager that you’re hearing these complaints, and let that manager decide whether to deal with it.</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="7337"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong"><br /></strong></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="7337"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Step three: Plan the fix</strong></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="8e05"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="8e05">Ok so you talked to all the people and the problem is still not fixed. Assuming no one owns the problem and you really still want to own it and fix it, great. Make a concrete plan for how you will fix it, and share that plan with the people who need to know about it. You should expect that you will need to get feedback and revise your plan, and the amount of feedback and revision required will be directly related to how big the problem is, how many people it impacts, and how controversial the fix you’re proposing is. Expect this feedback, buy-in, and revision process to take a while. You’ll need feedback from all corners, friends are good to start with but be sure to include your skeptics too. Your goal is to convince everyone that they want you to solve the problem. Yes, that means a lot more talking. If you’re tired now, maybe this isn’t your problem to solve!</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="a535"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="a535">If this problem is with another team, and you talked to that team, brought them clear examples of why it is truly a big deal, and they haven’t answered your concerns to your satisfaction, you have a choice. Do you escalate to your manager? If you have clear examples of why it’s a problem, and your peer hasn’t been able to do anything, this is a perfectly fine time to escalate! Consider though whether you can negotiate a fix with the other team, or work around the other team. And, especially when the problem is cultural, consider whether you really need to make this problem into a big deal, or whether you can just let it go.</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="c825"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong"><br /></strong></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="c825"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Step four: Enact the plan</strong></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="3bdb"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="3bdb">And now we get to the tricky part. You saw this problem, you complained about it, you made it your own, and now you have to fix it! This is what you wanted, right?</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="4dd3"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="4dd3">Unfortunately, the fix will almost certainly take a lot longer than you’re thinking it will take, and it will probably be a lot of work on your part to see it all the way through. And by the way, it’s unlikely that you get to give up any of your other problems to take this one on. But this is something you feel passionately about, and that should make the extra work worth it to you.</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="2256"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong"><br /></strong></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="2256"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Step five: Think about how many of these you can actually do</strong></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="cc1d"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="cc1d">Good job! You fixed the problem! It was probably a little bit harder to fix than you expected huh? Especially if it was a cultural thing that you needed to change. But it should feel good to have it fixed. You can see the improvement you were aiming for, and you’ve got a great story to tell.</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="0775"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="0775">Take a moment to reflect on whether it was worth the effort to you, and think about how many more things like this you see at the company you’re in that you really want to change just as much as that one.</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="0f63"><br /></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="0f63">Think about what else you could be doing with that extra energy. Finishing a critical project sooner? Hiring a few people who are more in tune with your way of doing things, who might be able to fix things for you? Writing a novel? Getting a personal best on your deadlift?</div><h3><br /></h3><h3>Pick Your Culture First and&nbsp;Foremost</h3><div class="graf graf--p" name="043a">Learning how to pick your battles is also about learning how to pick your company and pick your boss, because your job really shouldn’t be all or even mostly about battles. Going through this exercise of solving an unowned problem is fun once in a while, but it’s a real drag when you feel like you’re surrounded by such problems, you can’t ignore them, and you’re powerless to fix them. That is a good sign that it’s time to find a new job, preferably somewhere that is more in tune with your way of doing things. Life is so much more fun when you have people around you that you trust to solve problems, even the problems you have a lot of opinions about.</div><div class="graf graf--p" name="043a"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="640" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*ooyoTtGkEfUYosK56_AWdw.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="507" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flowchart courtesy twitter user&nbsp;<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://twitter.com/felidelg" rel="noopener" style="font-size: 12.8px;" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/felidelg</a><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="graf graf--p" name="7c83"><em class="markup--em markup--p-em">Enjoy this post? You might like my book, </em><a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="http://amzn.to/2nw1QN5" rel="nofollow noopener nofollow noopener nofollow noopener noopener noopener" target="_blank"><em class="markup--em markup--p-em">The Manager’s Path</em></a><em class="markup--em markup--p-em">, available on Amazon and Safari Online!</em></div>#1198: “How do I deal with work burnout and make my partner* happy?” (*My partner = my boss, who is *a* partner in the law firm where I work)2019-05-09T03:50:47ZJenniferPhttps://captainawkward.com/2019/05/08/1198-how-do-i-deal-with-work-burnout-and-make-my-partner-happy-my-partner-my-boss-who-is-a-partner-in-the-law-firm-where-i-work/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/1198-how-do-i-deal-w/749005:8fc55a">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/749005.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Captain Awkward:</b>
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Well this whole thing gave me a giant &quot;Secretary&quot; flashback, but the piece on Insecure Overachievers was illuminating.
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<p>I&#8217;m putting this one behind a cut. A Letter Writer is dealing with some major work burnout and anxiety, and mentions disordered eating (bulimia) and childhood abuse including sexual abuse in passing (no details, just, mentioned). This is a tricky one.</p>
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<p><em>Dear Captain Awkward &#8211;</em></p>
<p><em>So – the most important person in my life is my partner at the law firm I work at and while I should be writing to you to probably figure out how to establish healthy boundaries and work life balance, I am instead writing to you to see how I can make him happier and acknowledge that I have been slipping which makes me panicky which slows down my work even more.</em></p>
<p><em>The thing is I have in equal parts, never been happier in my life than when I work with him; I have completely forgotten who I was and what I did with my life before this job; and know I am 100% projecting all my mess on him while he is generally a pillar of stability and kindness and someone who believes in me so much.</em></p>
<p><em>I (she/her), like many people, had both a blessed and somewhat horrible childhood where I had parents who loved me, some step-parents (between the two of them my parents were married seven times) who loved me, and one stepparent who while I’m sure also loved me also hurt me (emotionally, physically, sexually). I went to college and it was messy but I pulled myself mainly into a stable space and built a life with friends (great!) and dated some (horrible! I have the worst taste!) and self-medicated a bit through food and bulimia (neutral?). Through all of this school was my safe space. To this day, the two most soothing sounds to me in the world are a school radiator humming quietly on a winter night and the click of heels on a polished floor.</em></p>
<p><em>I picked a field that I knew would take everything I would give it and be a career, an identity, a life. And I love it. And I’ve been successful! Clients like me, my counselees like me, I am good at what I do, and my partners like me! Because I picked a specialty of a specialty I’m not actually in the same office as my main partner. He also hasn’t always been my partner, when I started at the firm I worked in another state in another office and it took five years to convince him to see me as a viable replacement for his last associate. For the last two years I’ve worked nearly solely for him and it has been better than I ever thought it would be.</em></p>
<p><em>But we work a lot and so boundaries get…fluid. Not in an untoward way. Just in I know about his family and his frustrations and he worries about me and protects me? He worries about me when I stay too late at the office (in case the city is dangerous) and he worries about me when I’m sick (and orders me to go to doctor). And he protects me. When another partner yelled at me he made them apologize. When a partner made me cry he made them make me feel better. And when a partner made me uncomfortable he nearly burned the world down to make it right. He makes sure no one bullies me and when I make a mistake he says we made a mistake because we are a team. He makes me feel safe and secure and as a result he has my loyalty completely.</em></p>
<p><em>But it’s been a rough winter. The hours have been very long and I had a four month bronchial infection that I ignored until he told me I had to go to the doctor and I realized it was really bad (two courses of antibiotics and it’s still not gone). I am tired and a little sloppy and he deserves so much more than that and I can tell he thinks I’m burned out.</em></p>
<p><em>But all I hear in my head when he says that is that he is going to leave me and replace me. That the man who protects and cares about me more successfully than anyone else in my life might be done with me. I have to mentally restrain myself from begging him not to leave me (even though he has never indicated he will) and begging him not to replace me (even though he has never even said that’s on the table.) Abstractly, I know both of those are not appropriate workplace responses to someone gently suggesting I might be burned out.</em></p>
<p><em>But I don’t want to lose him. I do not know who I am without my job and without him. I feel physically anxious when I am separated from work and my email. When I think he is mad at me my world becomes unanchored and my sleeve feels like it is all unraveled.</em></p>
<p><em>I have an intake appointment for a therapist later this month to hopefully work through some of this (and also some of the food issues I have) and I’m trying to work out more and eat better but then my brain gets stuck on the hamster wheel of worry and so I get behind, which means I work later, which means I get more tired, which means I get sloppier, which means I get more worried.</em></p>
<p><em>So, I guess my question is this – how can I make him happy? How can I trust that he trusts and values me? How can I put in boundaries that mean I project less of my messy onto him? How can I put my head back on straight so I can be that high producing, happy, good associate that convinced him to let her transfer to his group – who he used to brag about to his other partner friends when he apparently never does that – instead of the tiny disaster trainwreck I currently am?</em></p>
<p><em>Thank you,</em></p>
<p><em>Being clingy doesn’t help my billable goal!</em></p>
<p>Hi there, &#8220;Being Clingy.&#8221;</p>
<p>When you go to see your therapist, which I am very glad you are planning to do, consider taking your letter with you, even if you just keep it with you as a reference for what you&#8217;re there to talk about, namely, <em>&#8220;I have a history of childhood abuse and disordered eating, additionally I&#8217;m experiencing burnout at work and I&#8217;ve become pretty fixated on my work supervisor and I&#8217;d like help developing some better boundaries around that.&#8221; </em>You kind of glossed over the childhood stuff and the bulimia in your writeup, like, <em>&#8220;Oh, look what I overcame, no worries!&#8221;</em> but there&#8217;s a reason you included it, the happiest places you&#8217;ve ever been are institutions where you could get outside approval for how hard you worked (<em><strong>&#8220;</strong>To this day, the two most soothing sounds to me in the world are a school radiator humming quietly on a winter night and the click of heels on a polished floor&#8221;</em>) and honestly that surprises me not at all.</p>
<p>The way you talk about this job and embody all this in a single person &#8211; &#8220;my partner&#8221; &#8211; meaning *a* partner at a law firm who I don&#8217;t think&#8230;you are dating&#8230;? But reading to me the way people talk about &#8220;my partner&#8221; as in &#8220;the love of my life&#8221; and then with a lot of language that would support that, like how you are obsessed with &#8220;making him happy&#8221;? That needs some serious untangling.</p>
<p>My first honest thought about what it reminded me of was D/s BDSM fantasy erotica, the breathless description of a submissive waiting for Master to give permission to eat or pee or switch sitting positions (or go to the doctor for a persistent cough at long long last), the <em>&#8220;My Master is the Best Master, he protects me from all the other Mean Masters&#8221;</em> tone of the part where he (from what I can guess ) successfully stood up for you with his colleagues enforced your office&#8217;s policy about sexual harassment against a colleague who made you uncomfortable (this is part of his job).</p>
<p>Consider your opening statement: <em>&#8220;So – <strong>the most important person in my life is my partner at the law firm I work at</strong> and while I should be writing to you to probably figure out how to establish healthy boundaries and work life balance, <strong>I am instead writing to you to see how I can make him happier</strong> and acknowledge that I have been slipping which makes me panicky which slows down my work even more.&#8221;</em></p>
<p>If your letter were an excerpt from a story about how someone can&#8217;t wait for their loving &#8220;punishment&#8221; because they deserve it for failing to do enough to please somebody, I would not blink an eye. But as an advice letter about a workplace thing?</p>
<p>BLINK BLINK.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s go back to the healthy boundaries and work-life balance, please.</p>
<p>It is definitely not wrong to dream about having that kind of kink relationship in personal life, and before you insist that what you feel for your boss is not sexual or assure me that &#8220;he would never do that!,&#8221; your letter isn&#8217;t reminding me of the SEX in that kind of kink fantasy, or how any of it might actually be practiced in real life (don&#8217;t @me <em>&#8220;but <strong>real</strong> bdsm isn&#8217;t like that&#8221;</em> people, I don&#8217;t care and also it&#8217;s not the point), <strong>it&#8217;s reminding me of the headspace</strong>, the <strong>story, </strong>the <strong>fantasy</strong> of letting go and trusting someone else to do the driving, they&#8217;ll take you where you need to go if you can just be good enough and let them, a fantasy where, btw, it&#8217;s all about the person who is giving up control, i.e. <strong>you</strong>.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s also something <strong>religious</strong> about this kind of desire. I&#8217;m not religious but sometimes I pet my cat Daniel Striped Tiger and imagine a giant, caring hand petting me like that, flipping me over on my back and and holding me safe, cupping my skull in one hand and skritch-ing a hand all the way down my spine exactly the way I like it with the other, what it might feel like to be able to be so boneless and relaxed in the clutches of a greater power. A massage isn&#8217;t the same, I&#8217;d need a literal giant to give me the thing I mean. If it helps translate it into a non-physical context, maybe imagine yourself as a wandering knight in search of a feudal lord, or a young novitiate in a religious order who can&#8217;t wait to take their final vows. You&#8217;re aching to swear your undying loyalty and service to&#8230;someone&#8230;and be taken care of in return, to know that you belong somewhere, but you&#8217;re afraid that if you&#8217;re not perfect no one will have you.</p>
<p>Two problems with that. I mean, at least two problems with that.</p>
<p><strong>First problem: It is incredibly Not Okay to project this much&#8230;stuff&#8230;onto a boss or a workplace.</strong> Your boss might be a great boss and a wonderful, caring person who likes you and your work a whole lot, but here&#8217;s what&#8217;s probably closer to his perspective on this:</p>
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<li>This person does not want your blood oath of loyalty. He does not want you to drop all your love and anxiety and perfectionism and fear and devotion at his feet like an offering.</li>
<li>This person wants you to do your work and do it well.</li>
<li>He wants you to get home safe at night and take care of your own health (partly because he&#8217;s a fellow human being, partly so he doesn&#8217;t have to remind a fellow adult to go to a doctor when they&#8217;re sick).</li>
<li>He does want to function as a team and make use of your no-doubt excellent skills.</li>
<li>Knowing about a person&#8217;s family and personal life happens when you work closely with someone, it&#8217;s possible to be friendly with coworkers on this level without it being particularly special or &#8220;blurring boundaries.&#8221;</li>
<li>This person does not think about you all that much except in the context of work or when you are right in front of him. You describe your boss as &#8220;<em>the man who protects and cares about me more successfully than anyone else in my life&#8230;&#8221;</em> but that&#8217;s not his&#8230;I don&#8217;t know&#8230;responsibility? Being the most caring person you&#8217;ve ever known doesn&#8217;t mean that he&#8217;s caring ENOUGH for what you need, or that should be his role, or that he owes you something because of that, the same way that <em>&#8220;You&#8217;re the only person who really understands me&#8221;</em> is not a compliment.</li>
<li>If your boss DID accept/cultivate/foster/expect the level of devotion you describe here, <strong>he would be a very bad boss and a bad person.</strong> Nobody who would actually be a good professional mentor for you would want you to feel like this or behave like this.</li>
<li>Consider also that you&#8217;re staying late all the time, hesitant to take time off to nurse a serious medical condition or go to the doctor without explicit permission because your workload is too big and<strong> &#8220;your partner&#8221; aka your manager is not doing the best job of managing that in a way that&#8217;s sustainable for you or the firm.</strong> If a company cannot weather the temporary absence of a single employee for a week or so to rest up and shake a routine winter catarrh, that&#8217;s a company problem and a manager-problem, not a you-problem.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Second problem: Jobs don&#8217;t love you back. </strong>Reciprocity is inherently lacking in this whole situation. In feudal times knights swore fealty to their lords and the rulers promised and gave something in return: lifelong home and hearth, mutual aid, advocacy, fairness, care. <a href="http://www.dragonbear.com/fealty.html">Hark! This nice person compiled a ton of historical examples for us</a>. Same deal with religious orders: Swear your faith, chastity, and obedience and you get three hots and a cot and a place you know you belong for as long as you stay frocked and the abbey remains un-sacked.</p>
<p>Nowadays, the problem with professions like law, consulting, <a href="https://annehelen.substack.com/p/is-everything-an-mlm?fbclid=IwAR3pMk5AAJ97mRP6NTrtYXlH9VZkqaSSVWIavRob3VQGTyKxuMv5oFxqCLI">academia</a> (ask me how I know) is that they sell the idea of devotion, a proposition you bought wholesale (<em>&#8220;I picked a field that I knew would take everything I would give it and be a career, <strong>an identity, a life</strong></em><strong>.</strong>&#8220;) but it only means your devotion to them, they don&#8217;t make any promises in return. And they <strong>target</strong> people who will give that level of devotion, they actively recruit <a href="https://hbr.org/2018/02/if-youre-so-successful-why-are-you-still-working-70-hours-a-week">people they describe as &#8220;insecure overachievers,&#8221;</a> with the idea that if we succeed, great, and if we burn out, oh well, we&#8217;ll blame ourselves for not being good enough in the first place. A new crop of novices will be ready to take their vows next year.</p>
<p>From the link, here&#8217;s the description of &#8220;insecure overachievers&#8221; by<a href="https://hbr.org/2018/02/if-youre-so-successful-why-are-you-still-working-70-hours-a-week"> Laura Empson at the Harvard Business Review,(bolding mine):</a></p>
<blockquote><p>&#8230;elite professional organizations deliberately set out to identify and recruit “insecure overachievers” — some leading professional organizations explicitly use this terminology, though not in public. <strong>Insecure overachievers are exceptionally capable and fiercely ambitious, yet driven by a profound sense of their own inadequacy. This typically stems from childhood, and may result from various factors, such as experience of financial or physical deprivation, or a belief that their parents’ love was contingent upon their behaving and performing well.</strong></p>
<p>As the recruiters I interviewed explained, <strong>these individuals are immensely attractive to elite professional organizations because they are entirely self-motivating and self-disciplining. The firm in effect tells the insecure overachiever, “We are the best in the business, and because we want you to work for us, that makes you the best, too.”</strong> But upon joining the firm, insecure overachievers discover that the rigorous up-or-out policy exacerbates their insecurity and their fear of being “exposed” as inadequate — and ultimately rejected.</p>
<p>In the short term, insecure overachievers respond by delivering exceptional performance. As the chair of a consulting firm told me, “My theory is that the best client relationship builders in our firm are insecure. They are so hell-bent on making their clients feel good about them that they work overtime. Clients feel their passion and respond to that.”</p>
<p>The tendency to hard work is reinforced by the strong culture of social control created by elite professional organizations. On the one hand, this is comforting. <strong>Some professionals I have studied refer to their firms as being like a “family,” or something even more intense. As one consultant described it, “When I first came here, I thought, This place feels like a cult. But now I have been here a while, I think it is great.” Taken to extremes, the insecure overachiever’s sense of commitment can lead to extreme conformity and the normalization of unhealthy behaviors.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Paradoxically, the professionals I studied still believe that they have autonomy and that they are overworking by choice. They do not blame their organizations, which after all have invested in work-life balance initiatives and wellness programs. Instead, they blame themselves for being inadequate.</strong> Their colleagues seem to be coping, and they take that as further evidence of their own inadequacy. They do not talk honestly to their colleagues about their problems, thus perpetuating the myth of the invincible professional, which encourages their colleagues to feel inadequate in turn. <strong>If they suffer burnout, they think it is their fault. Their organization and its leadership are absolved of responsibility, so nothing fundamental changes.</strong></p></blockquote>
<p>When I moved to my current apartment, my first with in-unit laundry, Mr. Awkward snapped a photo of me mock-kissing the stacked washer and dryer units. When the units broke down, I was sad, and we tried to find someone to repair them, but after a few weeks the landlord replaced them with brand new ones since they were too old to affordably repair and would be better recycled. Now we have working units and can do our laundry. I like them just as much, if not more, than the old ones. Your boss doesn&#8217;t want you to leave, it sounds like, he wants you to take care of yourself and heal and get better so you can do the work and because he doesn&#8217;t want you to suffer or get sick, but he also is considering the work that needs to be done as separate from you and your well-being. That isn&#8217;t love, it&#8217;s capitalism. It&#8217;s his job to think that way. <strong>This firm, this boss, this career will never take care of you the way you need.</strong> No firm or boss can, or will. You must learn to take care of yourself, and it&#8217;s the hardest thing to learn when nobody ever taught you how, but you asked us or help and that&#8217;s where it starts, you admitting that you don&#8217;t know how to do that and finding appropriate venues to learn.</p>
<p>Your boss, not your partner, YOUR BOSS &#8211; if you do nothing else based on my advice, please stop calling him &#8220;my partner,&#8221; it is an immediate lightning rod of weirdness- anyway, your boss suggested you might be suffering from burnout. He spends a lot of time with you, watched you get real sick, knows your work is slipping, likely knows that <a href="https://lawyerist.com/recognize-prevent-lawyer-burnout/">burnout is incredibly common in your profession</a>, it&#8217;s very unlikely that you&#8217;re the first person he knows or at the firm who has gone through something like this, so, consider that possibly, he&#8217;s right?</p>
<p>If he is right, what do we do about it? Take time off? Reduce your workload? Hire someone to help you stay on top of it? <a href="https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2019/02/26/burnout-is-part-of-the-profession-how-can-attorneys-avoid-it/?slreturn=20190408181124">This piece has some concrete burnout avoidance and coping suggestions specifically for lawyers</a>, including taking advantage of bar association mental health and support resources.</p>
<p>Practically, it&#8217;s another question to take to your therapy appointment. <em>&#8220;I am suffering from burnout at work and I&#8217;m afraid that if I take time off or if my work suffers more, I&#8217;m going to lose this very collaborative and supportive mentoring relationship with my boss, either by losing my job or getting transferred to another practice area or office. Can you help me come up with a plan for dealing with burnout before it gets worse?&#8221; </em>There are screening checklists specifically for determining if burnout is the issue, your therapist might be able to help you zero in on exactly what&#8217;s going on.</p>
<p><span>Start there. Take some leave if you can soon, even if it&#8217;s just a few days. You need a break to nurse that cough. Non-negotiable. You&#8217;re &#8220;slipping&#8221; not because you suck and your boss is secretly looking to <del>break up with</del> fire you, but because you&#8217;re SICK. You&#8217;ve been coughing for months, four months, a quarter of a year! You&#8217;re SICK! You need REST! </span></p>
<p><span>Go to therapy. Keep going to therapy. Be honest with your therapist about what&#8217;s actually going on &#8211; the possibility of burnout, childhood abuse, disordered eating, extreme anxiety about this one working relationship at the expense of everything else. Talk about long-term goals, short-term coping strategies, talk about all of it. </span></p>
<p><a href="https://captainawkward.com/2016/12/12/924-my-job-is-killing-me-how-do-i-get-out/">Look at some</a> <a href="https://captainawkward.com/2017/01/09/934-how-do-i-keep-myself-together-in-order-to-leave-a-toxic-work-situation/">of the process</a> <a href="https://captainawkward.com/2012/03/08/202-my-job-is-making-me-miserable-but-i-dont-know-how-to-quit/">posts on the site</a> about figuring out what you want out of your working life when the environment is demanding. <a href="https://captainawkward.com/2013/02/16/450-how-to-tighten-up-your-game-at-work-when-youre-depressed/">Here&#8217;s one about keeping it together when your focus is suffering</a>.</p>
<p>When you&#8217;re ready (perhaps with the coaching of the therapist) talk to your boss. <em>&#8220;You said you think I might be dealing with burnout at work, if that&#8217;s true, what should we do about it? Can you help me make a plan so I can take some time off and refresh and bring in some resources to make sure our clients are taken care of?&#8221; </em></p>
<p><strong>Reclaim your own work for yourself, not as a devotional offering.</strong> From what I can tell you&#8217;re an attorney with valuable skills in a highly specialized field, your career achievements are <strong>yours</strong><span>, your <strong>clients</strong> like your work, this is not the sole firm or boss in the world who would value what you can do, nor is their estimation of your value THE sole estimation of your value. You worked your ass off to be here, it&#8217;s not all down to one dude! You are valuable if you never write another contract or research one more goddamn piece of case law in this life but also, your work is <strong>your</strong> work! Your career is your career! It&#8217;s not about this man, it&#8217;s about you. <strong>You</strong> did that. </span></p>
<p>Plus, consider that rising further in this career means not being the best sidekick or most loyal supplicant, it means being accepted by people like your boss and the other partners as a <strong>peer.</strong> The more abject you are, the more you hurt your advancement.</p>
<p>I know this panics you, but if it all goes wrong and you do have to leave to preserve your own well-being, it would be good to have savings and an escape plan and a list of other firms or partners who might take you on. This is actually one of the tools I use to manage anxiety (the clinical kind, with the help of a therapist): If the worst thing I&#8217;m dreading happening happens, what would I do in that scenario? I make a big list of options and remind myself I have options, even if some are laughably terrible options, maybe my option then is to laugh. Maybe this is not for everyone but I offer it up in case it is for you.</p>
<p><span>Almost certainly it&#8217;s time to reconnect with past colleagues, mentors, and other people who have believed in and supported your work. Doesn&#8217;t have to be &#8220;HELP, I&#8217;M DROWNING,&#8221; could be more like &#8220;Want to have lunch soon? What are you working on these days?&#8221; Catch up with anyone Not Your Boss who connects you to your profession and who has traditionally been friendly. </span></p>
<p>Also connect with your own pleasure, your own comfort. Eating good things, sleep, NOT WORK-things that soothe you and comfort you. You mentioned friends, do you see them? Could you call them? Are you making money at this fancy job that&#8217;s eating your life? Maybe use some of that money on you, doing fluffy kind things for YOU. Get a weekly massage if you can (see if they have a giant-hand attachment).</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t think you&#8217;re alone in feeling like this, <a href="https://captainawkward.com/2019/01/10/1165-i-think-my-only-friend-wont-hang-out-with-me-because-of-a-dead-guy/">here&#8217;s another person with a story about extreme limerance toward a mentor that&#8217;s about a ton of other life-history</a>, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s forever, I don&#8217;t think you&#8217;re bad or broken, I wasn&#8217;t making fun of you about the letter&#8217;s resemblance to erotica or a religious mania &#8211; that was my honest reaction to the kind of abject desire and self-abegnation on display in what you wrote. I think you&#8217;re a good person who wants to do a good job and your health and some trauma stuff have surfaced in a way that professions like yours exacerbate. (Seriously, read the thing about &#8220;insecure overachievers.&#8221; Imagine professional recruiters knowingly targeting people with your exact history and emotional profile because they know you&#8217;ll work yourself to death and think it&#8217;s your fault if you crack under the pressure, and tell me again how <strong>you&#8217;re</strong> failing at everything?) I think a lot of people are quietly going through terrible things while they outwardly achieve and rise in the ranks, and they&#8217;re not supposed to talk about it, ever, and that makes it worse for everyone (except the companies who benefit from it), I think you&#8217;d be completely shocked at how not alone you are in all this.</p>
<p>No comments today, if you find you want some ongoing peer support, the forums at <a href="http://friendsofcaptainawkward.com/main/">friendsofcaptainawkward.com </a>are a very nice bunch.</p>
<p>I wish you all the best with this, please know that I&#8217;m rooting for you to figure this out.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p><br><br><img src="https://2.gravatar.com/avatar/576f0315643c960709506320ae4268ce?s=96&d=monsterid&r=PG" />Creating Material Design Chips in an Android App2019-05-06T05:48:26ZMolly Algerhttps://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/601535266/0/atomicspin~Creating-Material-Design-Chips-in-an-Android-App/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/creating-material-de/6245529:a5e98c">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6245529.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Atomic Spin:</b>
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TIL that the button-toggle widget is called a chip
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<p><a href="http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/t/0/0/atomicspin/~https://material.io/design/introduction/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Material Design</a> was introduced by Google in 2014 as a visual language to create a universal design and style guide for applications. Along with Material Design, new widgets and controls were added to match the new styling. </p>
<p>One of these elements is the chip. <a href="http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/t/0/0/atomicspin/~https://material.io/design/components/chips.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Chips</a> function like buttons that can either be checked or toggled. They can be used as filters, choices, or entries and wired up to trigger actions.<span id="more-151273"></span></p>
<p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-151290" height="91" src="https://spin.atomicobject.com/wp-content/uploads/20190331221414/Screen-Shot-2019-03-31-at-10.13.38-PM-590x91.png" width="590" /></p>
<p>If an app already uses the updated Material Design theme, chips will use the updated Material Design styling by default. If an app doesn&#8217;t use the Material Design theme, the style can be directly applied to the widget.</p>
<h2>Adding Chips in XML</h2>
<p>The easiest way to add chips to an Android app is to simply drop them into a linear layout in XML. By default, they are set up to trigger an action when clicked or tapped.</p>
<pre>
<code class="language-xml">
&lt;android.support.design.chip.Chip
android:id="@+id/adventure_chip"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="@string/adventure"/&gt;
</code>
</pre>
<p>In the XML, chips can also be added to a chip group. Chip groups allow you to control multiple chips’ layouts and multiple-exclusion scope, similar to a radio group. This means that only one chip in a chip group can be selected at a time. If different functionality is required, such as being able to select multiple chips, chip groups will not work.</p>
<pre>
<code class="language-xml">
&lt;android.support.design.chip.ChipGroup
android:id="@+id/chip_group"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
app:chipSpacing="10dp"&gt;
&lt;android.support.design.chip.Chip
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="@string/comedy"/&gt;
&lt;android.support.design.chip.Chip
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="@string/thriller"/&gt;
&lt;android.support.design.chip.Chip
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="@string/adventure"/&gt;
&lt;/android.support.design.chip.ChipGroup>
</code>
</pre>
<h2>Adding Chips Programmatically</h2>
<p>If dynamic functionality is needed, chips can be added to a view or layout programmatically. You can also create and add to chip groups in this way.</p>
<pre>
<code class="language-java">
ChipGroup chipGroup = new ChipGroup(parentView.getContext());
String[] genres = {"Thriller", "Comedy", "Adventure"};
for(String genre : genres) {
Chip chip = new Chip(parentView.getContext());
chip.setText(genre);
chipGroup.addView(chip);
}
</code>
</pre>
<h2>Handling Clicks</h2>
<p>There are three ways to register a callback on a chip.</p>
<p>The most basic handles what happens when a chip is clicked or tapped.</p>
<pre>
<code class="language-java">
Chip chip = (Chip)findViewById(R.id.adventure_chip);
chip.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
@Override
public void onClick(View view) {
// Handle the click.
}
});
</code>
</pre>
<p>Chips can also handle being checked. This provides a Boolean of the checked state to the callback.</p>
<pre>
<code class="language-java">
Chip chip = (Chip)findViewById(R.id.adventure_chip);
chip.setOnCheckedChangeListener(new OnCheckedChangeListener() {
@Override
public void onCheckedChanged(CompoundButton view, boolean isChecked) {
// Handle the toggle.
}
});
</code>
</pre>
<p>Chip groups can use the OnCheckedChangeListener to set one callback for all chips in a chip group. This provides the ID of the chip that was selected.</p>
<pre>
<code class="language-java">
ChipGroup chipGroup = (ChipGroup)findViewById(R.id.chip_group);
chipGroup.setOnCheckedChangeListener(new OnCheckedChangeListener() {
@Override
public void onCheckedChanged(ChipGroup group, @IdRes int checkedId) {
// Handle the chip group action.
}
});
</code>
</pre>
<p>Finally, chips provide a close button that can have its own click listener.</p>
<pre>
<code class="language-java">
Chip chip = (Chip)findViewById(R.id.adventure_chip);
chip.setOnCloseIconClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
@Override
public void onClick(View view) {
// Handle the click on the close icon.
}
});
</code>
</pre>
<h2>Styling Chips</h2>
<p>Material Design still allows developers to style chips to match their application. These styles can be declared in the styles.xml file. You can set background colors using a color state list with checked and unchecked states.</p>
<pre>
<code class="language-xml">
// styles.xml
&lt;style name="ChipStyle" parent="Widget.MaterialComponents.Chip.Choice"&gt;
&lt;item name="chipBackgroundColor"&gt;@color/chip_background_color_state_list&lt;/item&gt;
&lt;item name="android:textAppearance"&gt;@style/ChipTextAppearance&lt;/item&gt;
&lt;item name="android:textColor"&gt;@color/secondary_dark_blue&lt;/item&gt;
</code></pre><p></p><pre><code class="language-xml">&lt;&gt;</code></pre><p></p><pre><code class="language-xml">&lt;&gt;&lt;&lt;&gt;&lt;&gt;</code></pre><p>&#8217;</p><pre><code class="language-xml">&lt;&gt;&lt;&lt;&gt;&lt;&gt;</code></pre><p></p><pre><code class="language-java"></code></pre><h2></h2><p><a href="http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/t/0/0/atomicspin/~https://material.io/develop/android/components/chip/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"></a></p><p><a href="http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/t/0/0/atomicspin/~https://spin.atomicobject.com/2019/05/02/material-design-chips-android/" rel="nofollow"></a><a href="http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/t/0/0/atomicspin/~https://spin.atomicobject.com" rel="nofollow"></a></p><img align="left" alt="" border="0" height="1" hspace="0" src="https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/i/601535266/0/atomicspin" style="border: 0; float: left; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 1px!important; height: 1px!important;" width="1" />we have to write deeply personal poems and share them at a staff meeting2019-04-30T02:20:28ZAsk a Managerhttps://www.askamanager.org/2019/04/we-have-to-write-deeply-personal-poems-and-share-them-at-a-staff-meeting.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<b>
pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/we-have-to-write-dee/6233987:995aeb">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6233987.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Ask a Manager.</b>
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<p>A reader writes:</p>
<p><em>I work for a small values-driven company, and recently there has been an effort to do more relationship building among staff. Ahead of our next all staff meeting, we are required to write a &#8220;where I&#8217;m from&#8221; poem, based on the format of <a href="http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/professional_development/workshops/writing/george_ella_lyon.pdf">this work by George Ella Lyon</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>While it seems like a fine introspective journaling activity, I am uncomfortable with the requirement to write them and share them with our coworkers and leadership. Especially since the instructions state &#8220;Make yourself cry a little. It should do that&#8221; and &#8220;The key is making this as specific and personal as possible.&#8221; The suggested categories include &#8220;the worst things that you have been told,&#8221; &#8220;accidents or traumatic experiences,&#8221; and &#8220;losses.&#8221;</em></p>
<p><em>I&#8217;ve checked out your responses to other reader questions like the <a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2018/09/my-office-has-a-mandatory-feelings-chart.html">mandatory feelings chart</a>, and the <a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2018/06/my-boss-wants-us-to-all-share-our-mental-health-needs-at-every-meeting.html">mandatory mental health check-in</a>, but wanted to get your insight on this as well. I don&#8217;t like the idea of having to write/share poetry at all, much less this type of forced vulnerability exercise. I feel like if I object it&#8217;ll be seen as anti-bonding or anti-team building. What do you think?</em></p>
<p>What the hell! This is really inappropriate to require of people at work.</p>
<p>I mean, if you want to do a poetry exercise, fine. I’m not a fan, and you’re likely to irritate a bunch of other non-fans of such activities, but as long as there are relatively loose parameters, people can decide for themselves how serious they want to get with it … and can do something silly if they don’t want to get personal.</p>
<p>But “make this as personal as possible” and “it should make you cry” and “tell us about your trauma” … my head is exploding.</p>
<p>Are you comfortable pushing back on this? It would be utterly reasonable for you to say, “I appreciate the recent efforts to build relationships among the staff, but this crosses a lot of boundaries for me, and I imagine for some others. I am not comfortable being asked to share traumas or painful personal episodes at work, or being asked to make myself cry during a work activity. Can we reconsider this and either provide an alternative for people who aren’t comfortable with this or let people opt out?”</p>
<p>Ideally you’d get other coworkers to join in saying this with you so that you’re not the sole objector.</p>
<p>It’s true that you might be seen as anti-bonding or anti-team-building. That’s not the worst thing in the world though. Sometimes there’s enough value in speaking up and saying “this is messed up” that it’s worth spending some political capital to do it.</p>
<p>But if you’re not comfortable doing that, I’d just ignore some of these instructions. Write a poem that isn’t personal, that doesn’t talk about trauma. Keep it light, and if you’re called out on it, you can say, “I didn’t have anything more personal that I was comfortable sharing in a work setting.&#8221;</p>
<p>This seems to be the year that boundary violations at work have gone off the deep end.</p>
<div class="crp_related "><h5>You may also like:</h5><ul><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2019/02/we-have-twice-daily-mandatory-group-therapy-at-work.html"><span class="crp_title">we have twice-daily mandatory group therapy at work</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2018/07/my-employer-requires-us-all-to-do-tai-chi-in-the-office.html"><span class="crp_title">my employer requires us all to do tai chi in the office</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2018/11/how-can-i-shut-down-a-nosy-receptionists-questions-about-my-appointments.html"><span class="crp_title">how can I shut down a nosy receptionist&#8217;s questions about my appointments?</span></a></li></ul><div class="crp_clear"></div></div><p><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2019/04/we-have-to-write-deeply-personal-poems-and-share-them-at-a-staff-meeting.html" rel="nofollow">we have to write deeply personal poems and share them at a staff meeting</a> was originally published by Alison Green on <a href="https://www.askamanager.org" rel="nofollow">Ask a Manager</a>.</p>how much money do you make?2019-04-26T00:17:54ZAsk a Managerhttps://www.askamanager.org/2019/04/how-much-money-do-you-make-3.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/how-much-money-do-yo/6233987:535aae">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6233987.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Ask a Manager:</b>
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Nearly 13,000 responses already
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<p>It’s hard to get real-world information about what jobs pay, especially tailored to a particular industry or geographic region. Online salary websites are often inaccurate, and people can get weird when you ask them directly.</p>
<p>In 2014 and 2017, in an effort to take some of the mystery out of salaries, I ran posts asking people to share how much money they make, their job, and their geographic region. People have been asking for it again, so let’s do an updated version.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;d like to play, please fill out the survey below. (Do <em>not</em> leave your info in the comments section this time! If you can&#8217;t see the survey questions, try <a href="https://forms.gle/VRp8F9tKVvU6qSHt6">this link</a> instead.)</p>
<p>When you&#8217;re done, you can view all the responses <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rGCKXIKt-7l5gX06NAwO3pjqEHh-oPXtB8ihkp0vGWo/edit?usp=sharing">here</a> in a sortable spreadsheet. (Big thanks to commenter sacados for putting this together!)</p>
<p><iframe height="2114" src="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeVc_Ekc38RGPP39CwbchavglXY6MfymTAZqh8HDAOOMY8EMg/viewform?embedded=true" width="640">Loading&#8230;</iframe></p>
<div class="crp_related "><h5>You may also like:</h5><ul><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2018/02/the-ask-a-manager-guide-to-asking-for-a-raise.html"><span class="crp_title">the Ask a Manager guide to asking for a raise</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2018/02/should-employees-have-to-ask-for-a-raise.html"><span class="crp_title">should employees have to ask for a raise?</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2018/09/i-was-about-to-ask-for-a-20-raise-but-they-offered-me-5-before-i-had-the-chance.html"><span class="crp_title">I was about to ask for a 20% raise — but they offered me 5% before I had the chance</span></a></li></ul><div class="crp_clear"></div></div><p><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2019/04/how-much-money-do-you-make-3.html" rel="nofollow">how much money do you make?</a> was originally published by Alison Green on <a href="https://www.askamanager.org" rel="nofollow">Ask a Manager</a>.</p>Four short links: 23 April 20192019-04-24T00:23:06ZNat Torkingtonhttps://www.oreilly.com/ideas/four-short-links-23-april-2019<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<b>
pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/four-short-links-23-/6283933:b53334">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6283933.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Four Short Links - O&#39;Reilly Media:</b>
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#2 is interesting
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<p><em>Worker-run Gig Factories, Persistence of Firefighting, Discriminating Systems, and Activation Atlas</em></p><ol>
<li>
<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/when-workers-control-gig-economy/">When Workers Control the Code</a> (Wired) -- workers form co-ops to code and run gig economy apps, and make decent rates because there's no rent-seeker platform in the middle. A great counter for <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/04/19/opacity-n-gouging.html">rising prices and plummeting driver pay</a> post-IPO. (via <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/04/22/no-boss-just-floss.html">BoingBoing</a>)</li>
<li>
<a href="https://web.mit.edu/nelsonr/www/TippingV2_0-sub_doc.pdf">The Persistence of Firefighting in Product Development</a> -- <i>The most important result of our studies is that product development systems have a tipping point. In models of infectious diseases, the tipping point represents the threshold of infectivity and susceptibility beyond which a disease becomes an epidemic. Similarly, in product development systems there exists a threshold for problem-solving activity that, when crossed, causes firefighting to spread rapidly from a few isolated projects to the entire development system. Our analysis also shows that the location of the tipping point, and therefore the susceptibility of the system to the firefighting phenomenon, is determined by resource utilization in steady state.</i>
</li>
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<a href="https://ainowinstitute.org/discriminatingsystems.pdf">Discriminating Systems</a> -- headlines from the major findings: <i>There is a diversity crisis in the AI sector across gender and race. The AI sector needs a profound shift in how it addresses the current diversity crisis. The overwhelming focus on "women in tech" is too narrow and likely to privilege white women over others. Fixing the "pipeline" won’t fix AI’s diversity problems. The use of AI systems for the classification, detection, and prediction of race and gender is in urgent need of re-evaluation.</i> Also comes with recommendations.</li>
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<a href="https://distill.pub/2019/activation-atlas/">Activation Atlas</a> -- <i>By using feature inversion to visualize millions of activations from an image classification network, we create an explorable activation atlas of features the network has learned which can reveal how the network typically represents some concepts.</i> Beautiful.</li>
</ol>
<p>Continue reading <a href="https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/four-short-links-23-april-2019">Four short links: 23 April 2019.</a></p>Coming Soon: Resilient Management book2019-04-23T23:47:31Zhttp://larahogan.github.io/blog/coming-soon-resilient-management<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/coming-soon-resilien/6140102:727105">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6140102.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Lara Callender Hogan:</b>
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<p>This announcement was a long time in the making:</p>
<p><a href="https://resilient-management.com"><img alt="Resilient Management book cover" class="right" src="https://larahogan.me/images/ABA-30-cover.png" style="border: 1px #ccc solid;" /></a><strong>My new book, <a href="https://resilient-management.com/">Resilient Management</a>, will be available for preorders in May.</strong></p>
<p>I’ve been putting my heart and soul into this book over the last year, but its contents come from lessons I’ve learned over the course of my career. This book marks the culmination of many hours of coaching calls, workshops, tough work conversations, and one-on-ones with people I’ve managed over the years.</p>
<p>Whether your title is “lead”, “manager”, or something else:<br /><strong>if you’re responsible for supporting and leading a team of people, this book is for you</strong>.</p>
<p>I’m more proud of it than any other book I’ve written, and I cannot WAIT to share it with you. Preorders will be live in May; official launch will happen in June!</p>should I have shared my salary with a coworker?2019-04-16T23:40:04ZAsk a Managerhttps://www.askamanager.org/2019/04/should-i-have-shared-my-salary-with-a-coworker.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/should-i-have-shared/6233987:e9bd9b">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6233987.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Ask a Manager.</b>
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<p>A reader writes:</p>
<p><em>I changed jobs recently &#8212; my new company is a big, multinational organization comprised of lots of divisions. I recently had a conversation with a friend in a comparable role (in an entirely different division of my company), who asked to meet up to discuss salary. He has been at our company for a long time, and he had an inkling that because he hasn&#8217;t moved around much, his salary might be lower than industry standard.</em></p>
<p><em>Alison, it was. By a lot. This friend is technically at a higher level than I am (one step up &#8212; he manages several people while I only manage one person). But other than his added management responsibilities, we do largely the same work, and it turns out I make about 25% more than he does. Also, it&#8217;s worth noting that I&#8217;m probably five years older than him and have therefore had more years to get raises, cost-of-living increases, etc. And I&#8217;ve changed employers more frequently, getting more money each time. But he definitely has a &#8220;bigger&#8221; job than I do, with all my responsibilities and then some, so the fact he&#8217;s paid so much less than me seems strange.</em></p>
<p><em>He point-blank asked me what I made, and I told him. We had a good conversation, he thanked me profusely for talking about all this with him so candidly, and I think he&#8217;s gathering information to make a case to his manager at some point soon for a raise. I trust that he will be discreet with my information.</em></p>
<p><em>But here I am &#8230; feeling weird. I know there&#8217;s a lot of talk about creating greater transparency around pay issues, but the few times I&#8217;ve had this conversation with colleagues, we both end up feeling bad, not good (even in this case, when I sense I&#8217;m fairly compensated). It feels SO taboo to talk about money with friends and colleagues. Should I have handled this request differently? Was I correct to share my salary with him, or not? Am I at any legal risk with my company for sharing salary info? We always hear that we should be talking about these issues, but we don&#8217;t usually get much guidance on how to do it. Thanks for any advice you can offer.</em></p>
<p>It does often feel taboo to talk about salary … and that is hugely to employers’ benefit and to employees’ disadvantage.</p>
<p>Secrecy around salary is exactly what allows salary inequities to continue unchallenged — it gets much harder to argue that you’re being paid unfairly when you don’t know what colleagues are making, and it gets much easier when you do. And it’s virtually impossible to unearth systemic pay gaps based on race or gender when you can’t compare salary data.</p>
<p>So I think you should feel good about the conversation you had with your coworker, and more people should be having those conversations.</p>
<p>But you’re worried that this could have repercussions for you at work, so let’s tackle that.</p>
<p>At the federal level, the National Labor Relations Act gives employees the right to “engage in concerted activities,” which includes the right to discuss your wages and working conditions with each other. <a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2016/05/my-company-wants-to-stop-me-from-discussing-my-salary-with-coworkers.html">Employers aren’t allowed to prohibit you from discussing your salary</a>, and any attempts to do so violate the NLRA (which can be surprising to learn, considering how many workplaces have this — illegal — policy).</p>
<p>However, this protection only applies to non-supervisory employees, so it may not cover you (you mentioned you’re a manager). But if your employer ever confronts you about it, you can say something like this: “Oh, I didn’t realize that would be a problem! There’s been such a move toward salary transparency in order to combat gender and racial pay gaps that I hope we’ll reconsider that.” (In other words, turn it back around on them.) Or, since you&#8217;re new, you can lean on that &#8212; &#8220;Oh, I didn&#8217;t realize that! In my experience, companies are moving more toward pay transparency. Is that something we&#8217;d ever consider?&#8221; (Again, changing the conversation.)</p>
<p>If you’re really worried, you could ask your coworker not to use your name when he makes his case for a raise. It&#8217;s still useful for him to have the information to use as background if that’s all you&#8217;re comfortable with — but it’s far more useful for him to have freer rein with the info if you’re willing to allow that.</p>
<div class="crp_related "><h5>You may also like:</h5><ul><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2015/04/asking-for-a-raise-when-i-manage-payroll-and-know-what-everyone-else-makes.html"><span class="crp_title">asking for a raise when I manage payroll and know what everyone else makes</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2019/01/how-to-ask-for-more-money-than-the-stated-salary-range.html"><span class="crp_title">how to ask for more money than the stated salary range</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2019/01/my-new-job-doesnt-give-raises-ever.html"><span class="crp_title">my new job doesn&#8217;t give raises &#8212; ever</span></a></li></ul><div class="crp_clear"></div></div><p><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2019/04/should-i-have-shared-my-salary-with-a-coworker.html" rel="nofollow">should I have shared my salary with a coworker?</a> was originally published by Alison Green on <a href="https://www.askamanager.org" rel="nofollow">Ask a Manager</a>.</p>the Ask a Manager book is on sale right now2019-04-08T06:05:34ZAsk a Managerhttps://www.askamanager.org/2019/04/the-ask-a-manager-book-is-on-sale.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/the-ask-a-manager-bo/6233987:27a458">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6233987.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Ask a Manager.</b>
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<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0399181814"><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-15242" height="281" src="http://www.askamanager.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/GREEN_AAM_gif.gif" width="281" /></a>If you don&#8217;t already have a copy of the Ask a Manager book, now is a great time to buy it &#8212; because <strong>now through Sunday, the e-book version is on sale for only</strong> <strong>$1.99</strong>.</p>
<p><a href="https://amzn.to/2FZTYLT">Ask a Manager: How to Navigate Clueless Colleagues, Lunch-Stealing Bosses, and the Rest of Your Life at Work</a> is all about tricky conversations at work and walks you through principles for speaking up effectively at work in general &#8230; how to frame your concerns to your boss so that you get taken seriously &#8230; ways to get what you want from coworkers &#8230; how to talk to employees when you’re the boss &#8230; times when you <em>shouldn’t</em> speak up &#8230; and a ton of language suggestions for specific work situations, from how to handle a coworker who&#8217;s slacking off to how to recover when you&#8217;ve flubbed an interview.</p>
<p>The e-book is on sale wherever e-books are sold in the U.S., including <a href="https://amzn.to/2FZTYLT">Amazon</a> (for Kindle), <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/ca/book/ask-a-manager/id1275977837?mt=11#">iBooks</a>, and <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ask-a-manager-alison-green/1127023675;jsessionid=7551EA8FDF5C425C75E8FBD13F27FC19.prodny_store02-atgap12?ean=9780399181818&amp;st=AFF&amp;2sid=Random%20House%20Inc_8373827_NA&amp;sourceId=AFFRandom%20House%20IncM000023">Barnes &amp; Noble</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em>“The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”</em><br />
<em> <strong>—Library Journal, (Starred) Review</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em>“A must-read for anyone who works.”</em><br />
<em> <strong>—Booklist, (Starred) Review</strong></em></p>
<div class="crp_related "><h5>You may also like:</h5><ul><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2014/05/my-coworker-self-published-an-x-rated-book-and-wont-stop-promoting-it-at-work.html"><span class="crp_title">my coworker self-published an X-rated book and won&#8217;t stop promoting it at work</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2017/09/how-to-tell-someone-this-is-your-job-not-mine.html"><span class="crp_title">how to tell someone &#8220;this is your job, not mine&#8221;</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2018/10/our-intern-wont-stop-talking-but-i-cant-tell-her-i-need-to-get-back-to-work.html"><span class="crp_title">our intern won&#8217;t stop talking &#8212; but I can&#8217;t tell her I need to get back to work</span></a></li></ul><div class="crp_clear"></div></div><p><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2019/04/the-ask-a-manager-book-is-on-sale.html" rel="nofollow">the Ask a Manager book is on sale right now</a> was originally published by Alison Green on <a href="https://www.askamanager.org" rel="nofollow">Ask a Manager</a>.</p>Body Image Blues By Bingo2019-03-27T08:33:23ZMatthew Nolanhttps://www.ohjoysextoy.com/body-image-blues-by-bingo/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/body-image-blues-by-/3612779:5a5acf">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/3612779.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Oh Joy Sex Toy.</b>
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<p><a href="https://www.ohjoysextoy.com/body-image-blues-by-bingo/" title="Body Image Blues By Bingo"><img alt="Body Image Blues By Bingo" class="comicthumbnail" src="https://www.ohjoysextoy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/BodyImageBlues__OJST_preview.png" title="Body Image Blues By Bingo" />
</a></p>Erika&#8217;s doing tons better this week, but now it&#8217;s MY turn to get poorly. At this point, we&#8217;re looking at having had maybe 4 both-of-us healthy days in March so far 0_0 Thankfully Bingo&#8217;s here to save the day with this incredible comic. Like the best autobio, it&#8217;s honest, painful and amazing at the same [&#8230;]my team got matching tattoos … and other lack of boundaries at my start-up2019-03-21T10:29:39ZAsk a Managerhttps://www.askamanager.org/2019/03/my-team-got-matching-tattoos-and-other-lack-of-boundaries-at-my-start-up.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/my-team-got-matching/6233987:95f4c7">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6233987.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Ask a Manager.</b>
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<p>A reader writes:</p>
<p><em>I work at a tech startup in a place where that isn&#8217;t very common, and there&#8217;s always been a blurring of work camaraderie/ being actual friends because we&#8217;re all younger adults, but this is a new level: a majority of my team (eight out of 12 team members, including our department head) went away on vacation together and got matching, work-related tattoos.</em></p>
<p><em>The tattoos are small and subtle (think: the letters C T and we&#8217;re the chocolate teapots department). But this also wasn&#8217;t a youthful indiscretion kind of situation either; they booked the tattoo artist ahead of time along with the AirBnB.</em></p>
<p><em>This kind of thing has become increasingly common among my department, with the same group of eight or so teammates doing things together on the weekends, including our department head. There are informal group chats I know I&#8217;m not part of, going on vacations together, and now tattoos that quite literally mark the in-group. (A photo of some of the team members&#8217; tattoos is now being included in our new hiring training documentation. That actually worries me even more. Perhaps this is an overreaction, but that feels like a sign this is being embraced as part of our team culture.)</em></p>
<p><em>I&#8217;m not invited to these things, and while everyone is nice enough, I have never really felt I belonged here (I&#8217;ll be there a year in April). I&#8217;m also visibly a minority compared to the rest of my office (I have a disability that does not impact my work, but is visually obvious).</em></p>
<p><em>My friends say this is harmless, and I should stay to build my resume, but I&#8217;m kind of alarmed. Am I right to be planning an exit from this kind of environment?</em></p>
<p>Ignore your friends.</p>
<p>Having camaraderie and friendly relationships with your coworkers is a good thing.</p>
<p>But there is a certain kind of toxic culture, often found at start-ups and/or on teams made up mainly of young people (and there’s a lot of overlap there) where boundaries are so blurred as to be absent, people mistake their employer for family or friends.</p>
<p>Here’s what tends to happen in those cultures: People are expected to show inappropriate amounts of commitment and loyalty, even when it’s not in their self-interest to do that (and even when the employer won’t show it in return). People make sacrifices they shouldn’t make (anything from regularly working unreasonable hours, to not speaking up about things like harassment, discrimination, or legal violations, to not leaving for a better job when they should). People get rewarded and promoted for their relationships rather than for their work. People feel left out and alienated if they don’t want to manage their careers and lives that way, or if they’re different from the dominant group in some key way (hello again, race and gender).</p>
<p>Other things that happen in those cultures: People don’t get managed well, which leads to things like not getting feedback necessary to their growth to not having any way to escalate serious issues. People also pick up terrible habits and frameworks about work that they carry to their next jobs.</p>
<p>Maybe none of this sounds like your office, but based on what you described, I’m betting it does.</p>
<p>Eight of 12 people on a team vacationing together would be problematic on its own, but throw in that your department head was one of them, and you’ve got a seriously dysfunctional situation without professional boundaries.</p>
<p>That’s before we even get to the tattoos. For which I have no words, other than to say that instead of including the photo of the tattoos in new hire materials, it would be better if they included it in <i>recruiting</i> materials, where it could function as a huge flashing danger sign for job candidates to warn them off.</p>
<p>So yeah, you’re right to want to leave. Leave before this messes with your norms, and before it takes up so much space on your resume that the reference from them will carry even more weight.</p>
<div class="crp_related "><h5>You may also like:</h5><ul><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2018/08/is-it-ok-to-take-vacations-and-share-clothes-with-your-boss.html"><span class="crp_title">is it OK to take vacations and share clothes with your boss?</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2017/07/is-the-work-environment-ive-created-on-my-team-too-exclusive.html"><span class="crp_title">is the work environment I&#8217;ve created on my team too exclusive?</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2018/09/my-team-doesnt-ask-managers-to-hang-out-with-them.html"><span class="crp_title">my team doesn&#8217;t ask managers to hang out with them</span></a></li></ul><div class="crp_clear"></div></div><p><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2019/03/my-team-got-matching-tattoos-and-other-lack-of-boundaries-at-my-start-up.html" rel="nofollow">my team got matching tattoos &#8230; and other lack of boundaries at my start-up</a> was originally published by Alison Green on <a href="https://www.askamanager.org" rel="nofollow">Ask a Manager</a>.</p>don’t drunkenly email your boss this St. Patrick’s Day2019-03-15T00:38:51ZAsk a Managerhttps://www.askamanager.org/2019/03/dont-drunkenly-email-your-boss-this-st-patricks-day.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/dont-drunkenly-email/6233987:858c02">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6233987.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Ask a Manager.</b>
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<p>In preparation for St. Patrick&#8217;s day &#8230; a reader writes:</p>
<p><em>Back in 2010, I sent the most horrifying email to my boss (by accident!) and I thought you might get a kick out of it.</em></p>
<p><em>For context, there was a St. Patrick&#8217;s Day parade that a group of friends and I attended for several years. It was the kind of thing where you&#8217;d start the day with coffee and Bailey&#8217;s at 9 am, be dancing at a club by 3 pm, and somehow still be at a pub at midnight. I&#8217;m tired just thinking of it now. Ahead of the parade, I sent an email to get things organized, complete with an original limerick about drinking. Seven people were replying-all, all morning. The I realized, in the truest horror I&#8217;d ever felt, that I had sent it to my boss named Susan, rather than my friend named Susan. She was working from home that day and I tried to call her but she didn&#8217;t answer. Finally I emailed her apologizing profusely. She claimed she didn&#8217;t open it because of the &#8220;strange subject line&#8221; but suggested I might want to send personal emails on personal time. Noted.</em></p>
<p><em>Here&#8217;s the email for your viewing pleasure. I actually later entered a doctoral program where I wrote my dissertation on contemporary Irish poetry, so I suppose this was very on-brand for me.</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Subject line: call me st. patrick, cuz i can make your sham rock</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Once every March, there is a day full of cheer</em><br />
<em>When people wear green and drink beer</em><br />
<em>They chug, dance and fight</em><br />
<em>Take shots morning till night</em><br />
<em>And gals, that day is quite near!</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Yes, its true!!! That time of year is upon us again! What time of year, you ask? Only the best day ever!!! Better than Christmas? YES! Better than a birthday? YES? How can that be? Well, gather all your friends and dress them in ridiculous green outfits. Add some boas, perhaps a tiny hat. Set them free in a city of people similarly dressed, where the local police turn a blind eye to public intoxication. The hottest firemen in the state march down the street. Men in kilts wink at you. Strangers invite you to parties. You dance all day. You get tired, but you pull another beer from your purse. You drink through it. The streets are littered with green, white and orange. You&#8217;ve had more Guinness in one day than in the past year. Someone offers you a whiskey shot. Can you do it? You&#8217;ve been drinking since 10 a.m., when you started with Irish coffee. You aren&#8217;t sure. But then, St. Patrick smiles upon you. He drove the snakes out of Ireland and his next mission is to ensure your good time. You CAN take that shot of whiskey. You straighten your tiny hat, raise the shot glass, and with a Slainte! and a smile it goes down. It is St Patrick&#8217;s Day. And it is the best day of the year.</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>March 13, bitches! Lets meet by 8:30 a.m. and caravan to Newport, where Susan has so generously offered to host us, yet again.</em></p>
<p>My favorite thing about this is that it ends with the line about Susan having offered to host this extravaganza; I like to think that she spent some time wondering whether a horde of drunken women was about to descend upon her.</p>
<div class="crp_related "><h5>You may also like:</h5><ul><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2017/03/my-assistant-quit-because-of-st-patricks-day-pinching.html"><span class="crp_title">my assistant quit because of St. Patrick’s Day pinching</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2014/08/my-boss-keeps-pushing-me-to-drink.html"><span class="crp_title">my boss keeps pushing me to drink</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2017/03/contacting-my-daughters-employer-about-her-affair-former-coworkers-keep-asking-if-i-have-a-new-job-yet-and-more.html"><span class="crp_title">contacting my daughter’s employer about her affair, former coworkers keep asking if I have a new job yet, and more</span></a></li></ul><div class="crp_clear"></div></div><p><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2019/03/dont-drunkenly-email-your-boss-this-st-patricks-day.html" rel="nofollow">don&#8217;t drunkenly email your boss this St. Patrick&#8217;s Day</a> was originally published by Alison Green on <a href="https://www.askamanager.org" rel="nofollow">Ask a Manager</a>.</p>Four short links: 13 March 20192019-03-13T23:51:24ZNat Torkingtonhttps://www.oreilly.com/ideas/four-short-links-13-march-2019<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<b>
pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/four-short-links-13-/6283933:813658">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6283933.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Four Short Links - O&#39;Reilly Media:</b>
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#4
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<p><em>O'Reilly Radar, Speech Recognition, Super Sensors, Burnout</em></p><ol>
<li>
<a href="https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/what-is-oreilly-radar">What is O'Reilly Radar?</a> -- trends we see breaking: <i>Next Economy; Future of the Firm; Machine Learning/AI; Next Architecture; Responding to Disruption.</i> Report on <a href="https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/future-of-the-firm">Future of the Firm</a> is already out.</li>
<li>
<a href="https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/03/an-all-neural-on-device-speech.html">An All-Neural On-Device Speech Recognizer</a> (Google) -- on-device is the important bit here: no more uploading all your ambient audio to the cloud. <i>After compression, the final model is 80MB.</i> That's impressive too.</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.gierad.com/projects/supersensor/">Super Sensors</a> -- <i>a single, highly capable sensor can indirectly monitor a large context, without direct instrumentation of objects.</i>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://angersock.com/blog/2019/01/27/observations-on-burnout/">Observations on Burnout</a> -- <i>I’ll add some data points, go in-depth on what I think causes it, and attempt to offer some advice for engineers and managers.</i>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Continue reading <a href="https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/four-short-links-13-march-2019">Four short links: 13 March 2019.</a></p>our new manager is pressuring the women on our team to use menstrual cups2019-03-13T22:05:53ZAsk a Managerhttps://www.askamanager.org/2019/03/our-new-manager-is-pressuring-the-women-on-our-team-to-use-menstrual-cups.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<b>
pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/our-new-manager-is-p/6233987:537e9e">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6233987.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Ask a Manager:</b>
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<p>A reader writes:</p>
<p><em>This question is on behalf of a friend who works at a small 30-person property management company (we both live in the UK if that makes a difference). My friend has recently got a new manager to head the 10-person team she is a part of, and in which she is in the middle seniority-wise.</em></p>
<p><em>The new manager is very eco-friendly, and has given her team aluminium water bottles to cut down on plastic, got the company to stock the kitchen with biodegradable teabags and a coffee machine to offer an attractive alternative to takeaway drinks in non-biodegradable takeaway cups, and has had a cycle-to-work scheme approved and funded. The team appreciated these changes, and off their own bat members introduced other ways to go green, including improved recycling methods and a penalty for anyone who leaves their PC on all night: bringing in biscuits!</em></p>
<p><em>But a few weeks ago (in a private meeting) she presented the six female members of the team with menstrual cups. This on its own would obviously be horribly invasive &#8212; a boss doesn’t have the right to have any input into how you deal with menstruation &#8212; but the manager also made several light-hearted comments about how it could now be a pad-free workplace and help the planet.</em></p>
<p><em>My friend objects to this for a million reasons (obviously), just one of which being she has tried the menstrual cup method and decided it was not for her, but also because one of her colleagues rather tearfully told her that due to complications after giving birth to her last child, there was absolutely no way she could use anything but pads for a considerable time.</em></p>
<p><em>This should have been a case of just putting it down to the manager being a tactless idiot and moving on, but since handing out the mooncups she has been commenting when seeing her workers in the toilets clutching a tampon or wrapped pad. Never angrily, but a jokey “are you still using those?&#8221; or &#8220;haven’t you tried the cup yet?&#8221; When this happened to my friend, she used one of your lines: &#8220;I don’t feel comfortable discussing that kind of thing at work, I’m sure you understand,&#8221; but that doesn’t seem to have stopped her. She seems to be doing this from a place of helpfulness and real concern, but it’s just not on.</em></p>
<p><em>Is this something that all the female team members should approach together and call a meeting with the manager to make it clear that their menstrual accommodations are not to be discussed, or should they take it higher up the chain, to the company owner? My friend truly believes that the manager is a good person, but her drive to be eco-friendly has gone off the deep end. Apparently in all other matters she is a very good boss and a vast improvement on her predecessor, so my friend is wary of getting her fired. On the other hand, there is someone on the team for whom this is more than just an annoyance, but a really sensitive issue.</em></p>
<p>Ah, evangelists! Whether it’s diet, yoga, bible study, or environmentalism, good intentions run amok can create some serious … muck.</p>
<p>It’s great that your friend’s new manager is hooking people up with reusable water bottles and more eco-friendly tea and coffee. Hurrah for that!</p>
<p>But yeah, she 100% needs to leave people alone about what menstrual products they use. She can give out mooncups to her friends and family and strangers at the grocery store if she wants, but she really can’t do that with people she manages, and she definitely can’t hassle them about their choice to continue using tampons or pads.</p>
<p>Ideally, your friend and her coworker would shut this down on their own individually, by firmly saying, “I don’t want to discuss this at work and am asking you to respect that.” Or, &#8220;Jane, my menstrual choices are not up for discussion at work. Please don&#8217;t keep commenting on this.&#8221;</p>
<p>If they all (or mostly all) say that to her and she continues anyway, that’s actually a more serious problem. It’s one thing for her to just be clueless about how this would be perceived, but to refuse to back off when people directly ask her to would indicate there’s something more problematic going on here. (And I&#8217;d be skeptical that it&#8217;s going to stop with the menstrual products.)</p>
<p>If the firm individual messages don’t work, then the next step <i>could</i> be a group “we need you to cut this out,” but it would also be perfectly reasonable to just go to HR at that point, framing it as “we like Jane but are deeply uncomfortable with this and need you to intervene because us asking her to stop hasn’t solved it.” You said they’re wary of getting her fired, but it’s very unlikely she’d get fired over this (unless it was part of a larger pattern of complaints about her behavior), and your company would probably want to know about this so they have the chance to explain boundaries to her.</p>
<div class="crp_related "><h5>You may also like:</h5><ul><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2016/04/my-boss-freaked-out-when-he-saw-my-menstrual-products.html"><span class="crp_title">my boss freaked out when he saw my menstrual products and called me unprofessional</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2017/01/arranging-for-my-team-to-participate-in-an-indigenous-spiritual-ceremony.html"><span class="crp_title">I want to have an indigenous spiritual ceremony for my team</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2014/01/my-friend-doesnt-understand-that-i-cant-meet-her-for-lunch-when-im-at-work.html"><span class="crp_title">my friend doesn&#8217;t understand that I can&#8217;t meet her for lunch when I&#8217;m at work</span></a></li></ul><div class="crp_clear"></div></div><p><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2019/03/our-new-manager-is-pressuring-the-women-on-our-team-to-use-menstrual-cups.html" rel="nofollow">our new manager is pressuring the women on our team to use menstrual cups</a> was originally published by Alison Green on <a href="https://www.askamanager.org" rel="nofollow">Ask a Manager</a>.</p>Roleplaying Difficult Conversations2019-03-13T06:36:48Zhttp://larahogan.github.io/blog/practice-difficult-conversations/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<b>
pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/roleplaying-difficul/6140102:a9dd07">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6140102.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Lara Callender Hogan.</b>
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<p>As a manager, I had no idea how to handle my first disruptive teammate. The work environment was becoming less and less psychologically safe; the rest of the team had started to work from home more to avoid being yelled at by her. But she rarely acted out when I was around, so I found myself struggling to give this teammate feedback.</p>
<p>I tried to have a “hard talk” with her about her behavior, but it went sideways. I would leave our one-on-ones unsure if anything that I said had landed. Her bad behavior continued, and finally I talked with some more experienced managers about what I should do.</p>
<p>What helped me move forward was practicing the difficult conversations that I needed to have with my teammate. One of the other managers would play the role of my teammate, and I would practice giving the feedback. They played the role so well that I found myself at an impasse, or teary, or angry—but these managers had excellent feedback for me each time.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Don’t say ‘always’ or ‘never’—it’s a trap.”</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“Remember to put the ball back in her court, and make it clear what the next steps are.”</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“Don’t list out every specific example; keep the conversation focused on how the behavior needs to change. Otherwise the talk could get derailed about the specifics of each and every example.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sometimes the managers would play my role, and I would play the part of my teammate, so I could see how they would approach the feedback differently. I learned a ton about how to create space and keep the conversation moving forward by watching them roleplay.</p>
<p>Over time, practicing the feedback helped me to hone the words that I needed to say, and avoid the potential traps my teammate would create. But more importantly, it made me much less scared when I had the real conversation, because I had already practiced what it felt like to be punched in the face with these emotions. Of course there were surprises in the conversation (you can’t prepare for every single potential!), but I was able to handle it much more productively having practiced.</p>
<p>Practicing difficult conversations and feedback helps you be a better manager, but the <em>real</em> reason you should do it is to fully support the person on the receiving end. It’s your job to help them be successful! Below, I’ve outlined some ways that you can bring difficult conversations practice into your workplace, to help your coworkers receive the helpful, specific and actionable feedback they deserve. Enjoy!</p>
<p>Lara</p>
<h2 id="roleplay-giving-feedback">Roleplay giving feedback</h2>
<p>Pick one person to practice giving real life feedback. Pick another person to pretend to be the recipient of the feedback, and pick a third person to observe the practice session.</p>
<p>The feedback-giver should instruct the recipient on how they should play the part. Will the real-life recipient get defensive? Shut down? Cry? Something else? The practice recipient should play the part, but shouldn’t go over the top—try to make it as realistic as possible, to help the feedback-giver get some good practice.</p>
<p>The observer should write down notes as they practice. What worked well? What went sideways? What should they try next time? What should they avoid doing? The observer’s goal should be to give solid feedback to the feedback-giver, to help them deliver excellent (actionable, specific, productive) feedback in real life.</p>
<h2 id="hold-a-difficult-conversations-showcase">Hold a “difficult conversations showcase”</h2>
<p>Grab a conference room for an hour and invite all the managers in your organization. Ask six folks to practice giving/receiving feedback at the front of the room, so that the rest of the managers can see different styles and approaches to giving feedback in your group. In each example pair, one person will play the manager role, and the other will play their direct report.</p>
<p>Create fake scenarios (or use the ones below!) and share one with each pair so they can practice without using real-life information. Give them up to 6 minutes for each practice conversation, then call time. After each one, debrief with the whole group:</p>
<ul>
<li>ask the faux manager how it went, and if they would do anything differently</li>
<li>ask the audience what skills they saw the faux manager using</li>
<li>ask the faux direct report if they have feedback to share with their faux manager</li>
</ul>
<p>This is great for performance review season, so people can learn from their peers about different approaches (and pitfalls to avoid!) when having difficult conversations with their direct reports.</p>
<h3 id="practice-scenarios">Practice scenarios</h3>
<p>Manager: Your direct report has told you they think they deserve a promotion, but you don’t think they’re ready, because they haven’t consistently been performing at a more senior level.</p>
<p>Direct report: You’ve checked off all of the boxes on what it means to be senior. You did exactly what the career ladder says the work is of a senior person. It’s time for you to get a promotion.</p>
<hr />
<p>Manager: Your direct report has asked for an enormous raise. However, you do not believe they’re ready for a compensation increase, as it would put them out of band (and much higher than their peers who are much more effective in their roles).</p>
<p>Direct Report: You have a job offer from another company for a lot more money. You’d like to stay at this company if they can match the other offer.</p>
<hr />
<p>Manager: You heard from a lot of peer feedback that your direct report is being a jerk in meetings. They’re interrupting others, derailing conversations, and causing the team health to disintegrate. You need to deliver this feedback to your report.</p>
<p>Direct Report: You’re ready for a promotion. You say what needs to be said, you speak truth to power, you’ve made a huge impact on how much the team has been able to ship.</p>
<hr />
<p>Manager: Your direct report is hesitant to ship incremental improvements to the user experience. They debate ad nauseam each project, and you’ve heard from the rest of the team that this person is slowing them down.</p>
<p>Direct Report: You believe this company doesn’t spend enough time on quality. You agree with your team’s priorities, but you want to make sure you’re not shipping a low quality or partial experience for our users.</p>Mutmut2019-03-03T02:56:41ZNed Batchelderhttps://nedbatchelder.com//blog/201903/mutmut.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
<a href="http://pfctdayelise.newsblur.com/story/mutmut/4467:de1929">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/4467.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Ned Batchelder&#39;s blog.</b>
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<p>Mutation testing is an old idea that I haven&#8217;t yet seen work out, but it&#8217;s
fascinating. The idea is that your test suite should catch any bugs in your
code, so what if we artificially insert bugs into the code, and see if the test
suite catches them?</p><p>Mutation testers modify (mutate) your project code in small ways, then run
your test suite. If the tests all pass, then that mutation is considered a
problem: a bug that your tests didn&#8217;t catch. The theory is that a mutation
will change the behavior of your program, so if your test suite is testing
closely enough, some test should fail for each mutation. If a mutation doesn&#8217;t
produce a test failure, then you need to add to your tests.</p><p>There are a few problems with this plan. The first is that it is
time-consuming. Most people feel like it takes too long to run their entire
test suite just once. Mutation testers run the whole suite once for each
mutation, and there can be thousands of mutations.</p><p>But my larger concern is false positives: not all mutations are bugs, and if
the mutation tester reports too many non-bugs as bugs, then its usefulness is
diminished or even negated. I wanted to examine this idea more closely.</p><p>There are a few mutation testers out there for Python. I thought I would
give them a try, starting with <a href="https://mutmut.readthedocs.io/en/latest/" rel="external">mutmut</a>.
[Mutmut&#8217;s author Anders Hovmöller helped by commenting on a draft of this post.
I&#8217;ve included some of his commentary.]
</p><p>I needed a test suite to use, so I created a slightly artificial project.
The templite module in coverage.py is almost standalone, and is well-tested.
And it&#8217;s small enough that its test suite runs in less than a second.
I extracted templite, wrote some project scaffolding, and gave it its
<a href="https://github.com/nedbat/templite" rel="external">own repository</a>.</p><p>Now I had a project that tested well:</p><blockquote class="code"><code>$ coverage run -m pytest<br />============================= test session starts ==============================<br />platform darwin -- Python 3.7.1, pytest-4.3.0, py-1.8.0, pluggy-0.9.0<br />rootdir: /Users/ned/lab/templite, inifile:<br />collected 26 items<br /><br />test_templite.py .......................... [100%]<br /><br />========================== 26 passed in 0.09 seconds ===========================<br /><br />$ coverage report -m<br />Name Stmts Miss Branch BrPart Cover Missing<br />-------------------------------------------------------------<br />src/templite.py 144 1 60 1 99% 137, 136-&gt;137<br /></code></blockquote><p>(The one line missing coverage is a conditional for Python 2 vs
Python 3.)</p><p>Running mutmut was easy:</p><blockquote class="code"><code>$ pip install mutmut<br />Collecting mutmut<br />...<br />Installing collected packages: mutmut<br />Successfully installed mutmut-1.3.1<br /><br />$ mutmut run<br /><br />- Mutation testing starting -<br /><br />These are the steps:<br />1. A full test suite run will be made to make sure we<br /> can run the tests successfully and we know how long<br /> it takes (to detect infinite loops for example)<br />2. Mutants will be generated and checked<br /><br />Mutants are written to the cache in the .mutmut-cache<br />directory. Print found mutants with `mutmut results`.<br /><br />Legend for output:<br />🎉 Killed mutants. The goal is for everything to end up in this bucket.<br />⏰ Timeout. Test suite took 10 times as long as the baseline so were killed.<br />🤔 Suspicious. Tests took a long time, but not long enough to be fatal.<br />🙁 Survived. This means your tests needs to be expanded.<br /><br />mutmut cache is out of date, clearing it...<br />1. Running tests without mutations<br />⠇ Running... Done<br /><br />2. Checking mutants<br />⠧ 154/154 🎉 146 ⏰ 0 🤔 0 🙁 8<br /></code></blockquote><p>This ran 154 different mutations, which took about a minute for my
half-second-ish test suite. 146 of them resulted in test suite failures, as
they should. But 8 passed the test suite, so they have to be examined as
potential test gaps.</p><p>One nice touch: if you interrupt mutmut, when you run it again, it picks up
where it left off, which is great for a long-running process like this.</p><p>I&#8217;m not sure how mutmut decides where to find the code to mutate. In this
case it found it implicitly. Other projects I tried, I had to add some
configuration to setup.cfg, even though I thought the projects were laid out
similarly.</p><p>[Anders says it looks for &#8220;src&#8221;, &#8220;lib&#8221;, or a directory with the same name as
the current directory. My other project has a quirk: edx-lint/edx_lint has the
code, so the punctuation difference threw it off.]</p><p>To look at the mutants, use the <span class="codeword">results</span> command:</p><blockquote class="code"><code>$ mutmut results<br />To apply a mutant on disk:<br /> mutmut apply &lt;id&gt;<br /><br />To show a mutant:<br /> mutmut show &lt;id&gt;<br /><br /><br />Survived 🙁 (8)<br /><br />---- src/templite.py (8) ----<br /><br />10, 29, 37, 45, 46, 58, 108, 152<br /></code></blockquote><p>This gives me the ids of the mutants that survived, that is, the mutations
that didn&#8217;t cause a failure in the test suite.</p><p>We can see the actual code mutation with the <span class="codeword">show</span>
command:</p><blockquote class="code"><code>$ mutmut show 10<br />--- src/templite.py<br />+++ src/templite.py<br />@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@<br /> self.code.append(section)<br /> return section<br /><br />- INDENT_STEP = 4 # PEP8 says so!<br />+ INDENT_STEP = 5 # PEP8 says so!<br /><br /> def indent(self):<br /> """Increase the current indent for following lines."""<br /></code></blockquote><p>The mutation is shown as a diff. The old line is prefixed with minus, and
the new line with plus. Here the INDENT_STEP constant was changed from 4 to
5.</p><p>Right off the bat, we have a philosophical decision to make. A bit about
how templite works: it converts template files into Python code. Rendering a
template is done by executing the generated Python code. This
<span class="codeword">INDENT_STEP</span> constant is the indentation amount used in the
generated code.</p><p>I have no tests that examine the generated code. That code is an
implementation detail. The important thing is that the templates render
properly, so that is what&#8217;s tested. When mutmut changed the indent level to 5,
the generated code was different, but only in white space, so it ran the same,
and still produced the right output.</p><p>Does this mutation point to a problem in the test suite? I don&#8217;t think I
should test that the indentation level in the generated code is 4 spaces.
Mutmut provides a way to mark the line to exempt it from mutation, but I&#8217;m not
sure I want to start adding those pragmas. This is one of the things I wanted
to understand: what kind of false positives would appear, and how would I deal
with them?</p><p>Let&#8217;s see how the next mutant looks:</p><blockquote class="code"><code>$ mutmut show 29<br />--- src/templite.py<br />+++ src/templite.py<br />@@ -134,7 +134,7 @@<br /> code.add_line("append_result = result.append")<br /> code.add_line("extend_result = result.extend")<br /> if sys.version_info.major == 2:<br />- code.add_line("to_str = unicode")<br />+ code.add_line("XXto_str = unicodeXX")<br /> else:<br /> code.add_line("to_str = str")<br /><br /></code></blockquote><p>The second mutant has found the one line of code that is not covered by the
test suite, because it&#8217;s for Python 2, and we are only running under Python 3.
Mutmut has a <span class="codeword">--use-coverage</span> flag, which uses coverage data
to skip mutations on lines that are not covered by the test suite. If I had
used it to begin with, this mutant wouldn&#8217;t have appeared. Nice.</p><p>Next:</p><blockquote class="code"><code> mutmut show 37<br />--- src/templite.py<br />+++ src/templite.py<br />@@ -144,7 +144,7 @@<br /> """Force `buffered` to the code builder."""<br /> if len(buffered) == 1:<br /> code.add_line("append_result(%s)" % buffered[0])<br />- elif len(buffered) &gt; 1:<br />+ elif len(buffered) &gt;= 1:<br /> code.add_line("extend_result([%s])" % ", ".join(buffered))<br /> del buffered[:]<br /><br /></code></blockquote><p>This is a classic false positive. The condition has been changed from
greater to greater-or-equal, but it doesn&#8217;t change the behavior of the code.
This mutation is in an &#8220;elif&#8221; clause and the equal case was already handled by
the previous if clause, so greater-or-equal is the same as greater.</p><p>On this point, Anders commented:</p><blockquote><div><p>Mutmut here does point out that your code is overly complex. Just
&#8220;elif buffered&#8221; can&#8217;t be mutated but has the same functionality. I&#8217;ve found
this to be a weird little side effect to using mutation testing. If I follow
this the code gets better and more &#8220;just so&#8221;. This specific case isn&#8217;t a super
strong argument, but I&#8217;ve had many similar things that build on top of each
other in small increments.</p></div></blockquote><p>I can see Anders&#8217; point here, though I&#8217;m not sure I want to change the code
that way.</p><p>Mutant 45 gives us our first true success:</p><blockquote class="code"><code><span class="err">$</span>&#xa0;<span class="n">mutmut</span>&#xa0;<span class="n">show</span>&#xa0;<span class="mi">45</span>
<br /><span class="o">---</span>&#xa0;<span class="n">src</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">templite</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">py</span>
<br /><span class="o">+++</span>&#xa0;<span class="n">src</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">templite</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">py</span>
<br /><span class="err">@@</span>&#xa0;<span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">153</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">7</span>&#xa0;<span class="o">+</span><span class="mi">153</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">7</span>&#xa0;<span class="err">@@</span>
<br />&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;<span class="c1">#&#xa0;Split&#xa0;the&#xa0;text&#xa0;to&#xa0;form&#xa0;a&#xa0;list&#xa0;of&#xa0;tokens.</span>
<br />&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;<span class="n">tokens</span>&#xa0;<span class="o">=</span>&#xa0;<span class="n">re</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">split</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="sa">r</span><span class="s2">&quot;(?s)({{.*?}}|{%.*?%}|{#.*?#})&quot;</span><span class="p">,</span>&#xa0;<span class="n">text</span><span class="p">)</span>
<br />
<br /><span class="o">-</span>&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;<span class="n">squash</span>&#xa0;<span class="o">=</span>&#xa0;<span class="bp">False</span>
<br /><span class="o">+</span>&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;<span class="n">squash</span>&#xa0;<span class="o">=</span>&#xa0;<span class="bp">True</span>
<br />
<br />&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;<span class="k">for</span>&#xa0;<span class="n">token</span>&#xa0;<span class="ow">in</span>&#xa0;<span class="n">tokens</span><span class="p">:</span>
<br />&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;<span class="k">if</span>&#xa0;<span class="n">token</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">startswith</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'{'</span><span class="p">):</span>
<br /></code></blockquote><p>Templite can squash white space around tokens, and here we are changing the
initial value of the &#8220;should I squash white space?&#8221; flag. How can it not cause
a test failure? Because we never tested a template that started with white
space! Adding this simple test kills the mutant:</p><blockquote class="code"><code><span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">try_render</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">&quot;&#xa0;&#xa0;hello&#xa0;&#xa0;&quot;</span><span class="p">,</span>&#xa0;<span class="p">{},</span>&#xa0;<span class="s2">&quot;&#xa0;&#xa0;hello&#xa0;&#xa0;&quot;</span><span class="p">)</span>
<br /></code></blockquote><p>I thought that <span class="codeword">mutmut run</span> again would clear the mutant
from the results, but the only way I could find to clear it was to delete the
mutmut cache and run all the mutations again. [Anders wrote
<a href="https://github.com/boxed/mutmut/issues/92" rel="external">an issue</a> about this.]</p><p>Mutant 46 is another false positive:</p><blockquote class="code"><code>$ mutmut show 46<br />--- src/templite.py<br />+++ src/templite.py<br />@@ -153,7 +153,7 @@<br /> # Split the text to form a list of tokens.<br /> tokens = re.split(r"(?s)({{.*?}}|{%.*?%}|{#.*?#})", text)<br /><br />- squash = False<br />+ squash = None<br /><br /> for token in tokens:<br /> if token.startswith('{'):<br /></code></blockquote><p>Here <span class="codeword">squash</span> is the same boolean flag we saw in mutant
45. I only ever check it with <span class="codeword">if squash:</span>, so of course
False and None produce the same results. Notice here if I wanted to prevent
this mutant by adding a pragma to the line, I would also have prevented the
first success we had. Adding that pragma would be counter-productive.</p><p>Next:</p><blockquote class="code"><code>$ mutmut show 58<br />--- src/templite.py<br />+++ src/templite.py<br />@@ -160,7 +160,7 @@<br /> start, end = 2, -2<br /> squash = (token[-3] == '-')<br /> if squash:<br />- end = -3<br />+ end = -4<br /><br /> if token.startswith('{#'):<br /> # Comment: ignore it and move on.<br /></code></blockquote><p>This is another useful result. Turns out in my tests, I always wrote
space-squashing tags with a space, like <span class="codeword">{{a -}}</span>. This
mutated code adjusted the trimming of punctuation to account for the dash.
Because I always had a space before the dash, the change to -4 went unnoticed.
I killed this mutant by changing some tags in my tests to have no space:
<span class="codeword">{{a-}}</span>, and also added some with many spaces for good
measure.</p><p>Mutant 108 sure looks like it&#8217;s real:</p><blockquote class="code"><code>$ mutmut show 108<br />--- src/templite.py<br />+++ src/templite.py<br />@@ -211,7 +211,7 @@<br /> else:<br /> # Literal content. If it isn't empty, output it.<br /> if squash:<br />- token = token.lstrip()<br />+ token = None<br /> if token:<br /> buffered.append(repr(token))<br /></code></blockquote><p>Seems like we have no tests of non-white-space literal content after a
squashing tag. Add that test, and that mutant is killed.</p><p>Our last mutant is another interesting case:</p><blockquote class="code"><code>$ mutmut show 152<br />--- src/templite.py<br />+++ src/templite.py<br />@@ -283,7 +283,7 @@<br /> value = value[dot]<br /> except (TypeError, KeyError):<br /> raise TempliteValueError(<br />- "Couldn't evaluate %r.%s" % (value, dot)<br />+ "XXCouldn't evaluate %r.%sXX" % (value, dot)<br /> )<br /> if callable(value):<br /> value = value()<br /></code></blockquote><p>Here the error message has been mutated by adding chaff to the beginning and
end. We do have a test for this error, including its message:</p><blockquote class="code"><code><span class="k">def</span>&#xa0;<span class="nf">test_exception_during_evaluation</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="p">):</span>
<br />&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;<span class="n">msg</span>&#xa0;<span class="o">=</span>&#xa0;<span class="s2">&quot;Couldn't&#xa0;evaluate&#xa0;None.bar&quot;</span>
<br />&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;<span class="k">with</span>&#xa0;<span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">assertRaisesRegex</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">TempliteValueError</span><span class="p">,</span>&#xa0;<span class="n">msg</span><span class="p">):</span>
<br />&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;<span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">try_render</span><span class="p">(</span>
<br />&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;<span class="s2">&quot;Hey&#xa0;{{foo.bar.baz}}&#xa0;there&quot;</span><span class="p">,</span>&#xa0;<span class="p">{</span><span class="s1">'foo'</span><span class="p">:</span>&#xa0;<span class="bp">None</span><span class="p">},</span>&#xa0;<span class="s2">&quot;Hey&#xa0;???&#xa0;there&quot;</span>
<br />&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;&#xa0;<span class="p">)</span>
<br /></code></blockquote><p>The test still passes because it&#8217;s finding the expected error message
somewhere in the actual error message. If mutmut had added chaff in the middle
of the string as well, it would have failed the test. Is this clever of
mutmut? Hard to say!</p><p>When I change the test, the mutant is killed:</p><blockquote class="code"><code><span class="n">regex</span>&#xa0;<span class="o">=</span>&#xa0;<span class="s2">&quot;^Couldn't&#xa0;evaluate&#xa0;None.bar$&quot;</span>
<br /><span class="k">with</span>&#xa0;<span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">assertRaisesRegex</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">TempliteValueError</span><span class="p">,</span>&#xa0;<span class="n">regex</span><span class="p">):</span>
<br /></code></blockquote><p>BTW, the first time I ran mutmut, it created another nonsensical mutant:</p><blockquote class="code"><code>--- src/__init__.py<br />+++ src/__init__.py<br />@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@<br />-from .templite import *<br />+from .templite import /<br /></code></blockquote><p>This mutant survived because this file was never executed. That in itself
was a useful clue to the fact that I had made a useless file. Delete the file,
and the mutant is killed. [<a href="https://github.com/boxed/mutmut/issues/52#event-2173624536" rel="external">mutmut has changed</a>
so that it won&#8217;t create this mutation any more.]</p><p>So after all this, how did mutmut do? It gave me seven mutations, four of
which resulted in improving the tests. That&#8217;s not a bad outcome. But I don&#8217;t
know how I would use this regularly. I don&#8217;t have a good way to silence the
three false positives, so if I run mutmut again in the future, I will have to
consider them again.</p><p>As another data point about the cost of mutation testing, I tried mutmut on
<a href="https://github.com/edx/edx-lint" rel="external">another project</a> with a 10-second
test suite. It took mutmut 43 minutes to run 513 mutants, of which 165
survived. I haven&#8217;t looked through them yet to see what they mean.</p><p>All in all, I am pleased with the results. As an occasional (but expensive)
way to assess your test suite, mutmut works well.</p>What Could Kill Testing?2019-03-01T02:09:07ZJames Bachhttp://www.satisfice.com/blog/archives/5290<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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pfctdayelise
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<p><em>(I wrote this several years ago with Michael Bolton, but never got around to publishing it&#8230; UPDATE: Oh! I did publish this as an editorial in Tea Time for Testers. Well, anyway this is an update of it&#8230;)</em></p>
<p>Although Rome wasn&#8217;t built in a day, it took six days to accidentally burn down in 64AD. It was rebuilt to be a bit more fireproof. And when the burning of the Iroquois Theater in Chicago killed 602 people in 1903, the fire code for theaters improved in 1904. The Triangle Waistcoat Factory fire in New York City (146 dead) led to the founding of the New York City Bureau of Fire Protection, and the National Fire Protection Association now maintains several hundred separate codes&#8211; many of them inspired directly by specific tragic fires. People learn from disasters. </p>
<p>This is also why we have testers. Software disasters happened
and people learned. Those specific people became more careful, dedicated more
energy to quality assurance (including testing), and there were fewer
disasters. But, unlike fire codes, devotion to QA is generally not a matter of
law. If an organization hasn&#8217;t had a disaster in a while, their practices get
steadily riskier (partly because younger and more innocent people replace the
experienced ones). This is a normal Darwinian cycle. </p>
<p>So it’s not entirely surprising that at the STARWest conference, in 2011, James Whittaker (then at Google) announced that testing is &#8220;dead.&#8221; What? Testing is dead?! He seemed to be saying that testers are no longer needed in a world with automated checks and automatic updates. But Whittaker was <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/docjamesw/">not a professional tester</a>. So, imagine a cabinet factory industrialist, never himself having built a cabinet, announcing the death of skilled carpentry. That’s what it sounded like to me.</p>
<p>As if the Fates had overheard him and been offended, a few
weeks later a bunch of Google bugs made news: an article appeared on CNN.com
with the lamentable title &#8220;The week Google really messed up.&#8221; A
couple months after that, Google Wallet was discovered to have a serious
security problem affecting all users. More bad publicity.</p>
<p>What does that mean for the testing field? After all, no
testing process is guaranteed to save us from all bugs. Meanwhile, other
processes can find bugs, too, or prevent them. Amateurs and part-timers can
find bugs. Programmers can test their own code. Just because Google gets
embarrassed now and then by bad software doesn&#8217;t automatically mean they should
hire more testers. Maybe instead they should hire better programmers, or train
them better.</p>
<p>Well, one thing seems obvious: bragging about how you don&#8217;t value testing is <em>strange </em>when you also expect forgiveness from your customers and (increasingly) world governments when you hurt society with your products. </p>
<h2><strong>What Would
Kill Testing?</strong></h2>
<p>Testing is not dead. Testing won&#8217;t be dead. And anywhere testing seems to die it will be reborn, phoenix-like, not exactly from it&#8217;s own ashes, but rather from the <em>consequences</em> of its death. Still, it can be a good exercise to think about what might cause the death of testing, even in a temporary way. Michael Bolton and I sat down recently to brainstorm on that. Here&#8217;s what we came up with:</p>
<p><strong>1. Testing may die if you start using the word &#8220;testing&#8221; to mean checking.</strong> One of Michael&#8217;s contributions to the craft was to suggest a sharp distinction between testing and mere output checking. To test is to question the product so as the evaluate it. Testing is an open-ended investigation that cannot be automated. To check, however, is to gather specific information and analyze it in a manner that could, in principle, be automated. In the parlance of philosophers, checking is a <a href="https://www.developsense.com/blog/2011/12/shapes-of-actions/">mimeomorphic activity; testing is polimorphic</a>. Some people, mainly programmers who don&#8217;t study testing much, are strongly attached to automation. In pursuing their vision of applying tools to testing, they inadvertently dumb testing down. They do with tools what tools can do. They run many checks. Testing for them becomes little more than a command-line switch on the compiler (&#8220;-t for test&#8221;, or -q for &#8220;put the quality in&#8221;). And such checks are capable of finding bugs, just not nearly the breadth and depth and variety of bugs that a skilled human can, especially if that human also <em>uses </em>tools in a supporting role.</p>
<p>Mistaking testing for checking can kill testing, in a sense, by co-opting testing practice. Testing, as Michael and I see it, would still exist, of course. But it would be relegated to rhetorical shadows. </p>
<p>What I mean by that is that few people would systematically learn how to test, anymore, until we came up with <em>new words</em> that referred to what the term &#8220;testing&#8221; once meant. To systematically learn a technical subject, you must be able to talk about it. If all your words about testing refer to shallow and mechanical processes, the deep and skilled stuff is not a part of your world.</p>
<p><strong>2. Testing may die if the value of products becomes irrelevant.</strong> It dies when we don&#8217;t care about the quality of software or the people who need it. By the same token, if we always trusted the water we drank, or the meat we bought at the store, then water testing and food hygiene standards would be irrelevant. If we didn’t mind the occasional deadly fire, we’d happily see a show down at the ol&#8217; Iroquois theater.</p>
<p>There really is a problem in our industry with the erosion of the expectation that <em>anything </em>will work reliably, <em>ever</em>. I was trapped outside my house, in the cold, recently, and found that my Android phone would not make any calls on the cell network. I rebooted the phone (that takes a few minutes). Still no joy. I connected to WiFi and tried to call that way but got a strange error about not being registered. I had made calls through <br />WiFi before from my house, so I knew it could work. Finally I started Skype and IM&#8217;d my son (this was through WiFi , so why didn&#8217;t the phone calls work?). <em>This thing is supposed to be a phone.</em> I&#8217;m annoyed, but not surprised.</p>
<p>Google probably thinks I&#8217;m not going to give up my phone just because of a few glitches. This creates an opportunity for competitors to come in with a better product that kicks them out of the market— but hey— I worked for Apple, years ago, and when you&#8217;re inside a big company like that, you don&#8217;t really care. You think success is your birthright.</p>
<p><em>(Since I first wrote this I switched to an iPhone, which has been somewhat better.)</em></p>
<p><strong>3. Testing may die if the quality of testing work is chronically poor.&nbsp; </strong>Unfortunately, the death of testing can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. People most likely to believe that testing is dead are — like the folks at Google —unlikely to devote themselves to the study of it. They simply don’t know how to test, or perhaps don’t care. It’s only a matter of time before management wonders why they have testers at all.</p>
<p>The antidote for that is a high standard of personal
excellence. This is what the Context-Driven testing community stands for. We
are doing our best to win over the rest of the testing world by being good role
models.</p>
<p><strong>4. Testing may die if
all the users in the world were early adopter technocrats.</strong>&nbsp; Let’s pretend that all the people in the
world who use computers or rely on them in some way are highly technical and
tolerant of problems in the products they use. Then the need for testing would
dramatically fall. Sure, they want great quality, but if they don’t get it,
they understand. For minor glitches, they will have the patience to find a work
around.</p>
<p>That may be more true for the perpetual beta products that
Google famously offers, but everyone on Earth depends on computers in some way,
even if they’ve never seen one. And a tiny minority of those people will
experimentally download a tool like Google Earth, as I have, and then spend an
hour re-configuring it so that it will actually run.</p>
<p><strong>5. Testing may die by
suffocation.</strong> If testers are forced to channel all their ideas through a
limiting set of artifacts or tools, their productivity may collapse. I’m
talking about elaborate test plan templates, test script templates and test
management tools, Cucumber “executable specifications” or other automation
tools that require the tester to express himself only in stilted and limited
ways.</p>
<p>That will kill testing because it turns testers into tool jockeys, whose standard of success is the weight of paper or volume of data or lines of code — none of which has much to do with testing.&nbsp; Tools can be marvelously helpful in moderation, but the excellent tester will resist obsessions with tools, documents, or anything that systematically impedes the variety and profundity of his work.</p>
<p><strong>6. Testing may die if
technology stops changing. </strong>Testing is questioning the product. There isn’t
much call to question a product that stays the same, especially if it operates
in an environment and for a user base that also doesn&#8217;t change. The ambition to
innovate is what invigorates the need for testers. Take away that ambition and
we all will have to get jobs in comic book stores.</p>
<p><strong>7. Testing may die by starvation.</strong> &nbsp;When companies reward people who take unknown risks, but not people who discover what those risks actually are, testing is not being nourished. If the craft becomes uninviting to smart, talented, motivated people because you&#8217;ve turned it into a boring, uninteresting activity: that also will starve testing. The only people left would be the ones who are too frightened or lazy to leave. The reputation of testing would become steadily worse.</p>
<p>Michael and I teach Rapid Software Testing, which is like a martial art of testing. It’s exciting. We are trying to show people that their jobs don&#8217;t have to suck. We feed the testers.</p>my office has a burn book we all have to read and sign2019-02-21T01:22:19ZAsk a Managerhttps://www.askamanager.org/2019/02/my-office-has-a-burn-book-we-all-have-to-read-and-sign.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<p>A reader writes:</p>
<p><em>I work at a customer service desk with one supervisor and a handful of employees. It&#8217;s shift work, and there is often very little overlap between morning and afternoon shifts. We have a notebook behind the desk where we are supposed to write notes to the team about anything you need them to. Things like &#8220;Expect X customer to come in tomorrow&#8221; or &#8220;We need to buy more staples.&#8221;</em></p>
<p><em>The problem is the supervisor, “Jane,&#8221; who writes down every employee&#8217;s mistake in this book, and we all have to read and initial it. It can be minor things like &#8220;Mark put the stapler in the wrong drawer&#8221; or more serious incidents like &#8220;Pam left the safe wide open and we could&#8217;ve been robbed.&#8221; Regardless of who the note is intended for, we all must initial next to each entry to show that we&#8217;ve read it. We are all frustrated with this and started calling it the Burn Book like from Mean Girls.</em></p>
<p><em>If I&#8217;m making mistakes at work, I absolutely want to know, but I think Jane should pull me aside and tell me about it. When I first started here about six months ago, I would skip over notes that weren&#8217;t about me. Then Jane wrote notes about me not reading the notes. If my shift overlaps with Jane and she has a complaint about me, she says &#8220;read the book&#8221; and refuses to talk to me about it. I&#8217;ve asked her point blank why she does this, and her answer is, &#8220;I want everyone to know when someone screws up.&#8221;</em></p>
<p><em>Some of the complaints Jane writes are actually wrong. There was a note saying &#8220;Pam broke the phone!&#8221; when there wasn&#8217;t anything wrong with it. Jane just forgot how to turn it on. A few of my coworkers and I have also written notes when Jane has made a major mistake, but each time she flipped out and says that we should have told her in person. That&#8217;s what we want!</em></p>
<p><em>I sent an email to Jane&#8217;s boss, which is her preferred way to be contacted. She normally responds to emails within a couple of hours, but it has been a week with no answer. Anytime one of us has complained to her about Jane&#8217;s behavior in the past, she says, &#8220;That&#8217;s just the way Jane is.&#8221; Jane has only worked here for one year, and in that time 11 people were hired, worked a few shifts, then quit saying they can&#8217;t work with Jane.</em></p>
<p><em>Is there anything I can do in the meantime? Should I tell Jane I refuse to read the book and want her to talk to me in person? I recently went back to school and hope to get a job in my new field in a year or so. Should I shut my mouth until then?</em></p>
<p>Does Jane know your handwriting? Because if not, I would leave multiple notes in the burn book saying “Jane is leaving weird notes about people’s mistakes instead of talking to them directly” and “this log book is bullshit and contrary to any decent system of management.”</p>
<p>I guess it’s “band together with your coworkers” week, because the most effective thing you can do here is to push back on this with a group of your coworkers. This is the kind of thing where it’s easy to ignore one of you but will be harder to ignore a group of you. You could start with Jane herself if you want, or you could go over her head (which I’d do by emailing her boss and saying that the group of you would like to meet with her about a concern with Jane’s management).</p>
<p>Then in that meeting, you could make the following points: (1) People learn best when they have a real conversation about their mistakes, not just a public bulletin without any discussion. (2) Publicizing everyone else’s mistakes just for the principle of it is punitive and demoralizing. (3) Refusing to speak directly to employees about problems (even when they’re right there next to her on the same shift) means Jane isn’t hearing about context that might change her perspective or help her coach someone more effectively. (4) You want a manager who will coach you to do your job better, not just tally up mistakes. (5) If Jane won&#8217;t speak to people directly, how will she handle topics that are more personal, like needing to address a hygiene problem or talking about disability accommodations? (6) Eleven hires in the last year have quit after only a few shifts because of practices like this.</p>
<p>I will say, though, that if this is retail (and it sounds like it might be), that field is rife with terrible management practices, some of them very much like this, and you might be fighting an uphill battle. If that’s the case, your best option might be to simply see this as the farce it is.</p>
<div class="crp_related "><h5>You may also like:</h5><ul><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2016/04/my-boss-is-a-mean-girl.html"><span class="crp_title">my boss is a mean girl</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2014/01/my-coworker-wants-me-to-have-a-sleepover-with-her.html"><span class="crp_title">my coworker wants me to have a sleepover with her</span></a></li><li><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2016/02/low-performers-in-my-office-are-paraded-around-and-forced-to-wear-dunce-caps.html"><span class="crp_title">low performers in my office are paraded around and forced to wear dunce caps</span></a></li></ul><div class="crp_clear"></div></div><p><a href="https://www.askamanager.org/2019/02/my-office-has-a-burn-book-we-all-have-to-read-and-sign.html" rel="nofollow">my office has a burn book we all have to read and sign</a> was originally published by Alison Green on <a href="https://www.askamanager.org" rel="nofollow">Ask a Manager</a>.</p>Learning from hitting a brick wall2019-02-20T04:47:52ZLisa Crispinhttps://lisacrispin.com/2019/02/19/learning-from-hitting-a-brick-wall/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<p>I&#8217;m fizzing with all the stuff I learned at <a href="https://europeantestingconference.eu/2019/">European Testing Conference</a> in beautiful Valencia last week! I gave myself the gift of taking sketch notes of all the sessions I attended, so I&#8217;m hoping I can do a few blog posts about it. I have been neglecting this blog lately because I spend so much time writing <a href="https://www.mabl.com/hs-search-results?term=Lisa+Crispin">posts on mabl.com</a>. (Which I hope you will check out &#8211; they are not about mabl!)</p>
<p>Anyway &#8211; I&#8217;m gonna start with the very first session, the keynote by the awesome <a href="https://twitter.com/techgirl1908">Angie Jones</a>. It was the perfect kick-off for two days of inspiration.</p>
<p><strong>A surprising turn of events</strong></p>
<figure class="wp-caption alignleft" id="attachment_2445" style="width: 150px;"><img alt="Angie Jones describes her team's &quot;10 Ps of testability&quot; report card" class="wp-image-2445 size-thumbnail" height="150" src="https://lisacrispin.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Angie10Ps-150x150.jpg" width="150" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Angie Jones describes her &#8220;10 Ps&#8221; report card</figcaption></figure>
<p>Angie has helped us get traction on the road to successful test automation for a few years now. She has given our software community the amazing gift of Test Automation University, which is free and incredibly valuable &#8211; I&#8217;m enjoying the courses myself.</p>
<p>When Angie started describing her approach to a huge automation challenge she faced, I expected to learn that she came up with a creative, successful solution. In order to do the testing she felt was needed, she automated creation of test data and setting up scenarios for further testing. Lots of head nods and &#8220;aha moments&#8221; from the audience as she told her story. (I&#8217;m writing this from my notes, so I hope I&#8217;m recounting this accurately enough. I believe there will be a recording available of Angie&#8217;s talk.)</p>
<p>Angie recounted how she found she needed an API endpoint to retrieve data to help with testing, in an area of the app that &#8220;belonged&#8221; to another team. Unfortunately, that team responded that they did not have time to do that work, even though it wouldn&#8217;t take long. Angie sought help from her manager, who arranged for three teams to get together to discuss the request. Whole team approach to testing, right? That sounded like a great way to get the problem solved. However, the result of the meeting was that a decision that there was indeed &#8220;no time&#8221; to create the endpoint. Angie hit the proverbial brick wall. It&#8217;s happened to a lot of us &#8211; but hard to believe it could happen to Angie!</p>
<p><strong>Testability is a team responsibility</strong></p>
<figure class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_2460" style="width: 150px;"><img alt="Rob Meaney's 10 Ps of Testability" class="size-thumbnail wp-image-2460" height="150" src="https://lisacrispin.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/10PsBigger-150x150.jpg" width="150" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Rob Meaney&#8217;s 10 Ps of Testability</figcaption></figure>
<p>Angie emphasized testability should be a requirement of the feature you&#8217;re developing. She referenced <a href="https://twitter.com/RobMeaney">Rob Meaney</a>&#8216;s <a href="https://twitter.com/friendlytester/status/1067850993230991360?lang=en">10 Ps of Testability model</a>. (I&#8217;m looking forward to Rob&#8217;s upcoming<a href="https://leanpub.com/softwaretestability"> book on testability</a> with <a href="https://twitter.com/northern_tester">Ash Winter</a>. If you&#8217;re a Ministry of Testing Dojo Pro member, watch his<a href="https://www.ministryoftesting.com/events/masterclass-from-testing-hell-to-testing-well-adopting-whole-team-approach-to-testability-rob-meaney"> master class</a> on testability.) She showed how many of the &#8220;P&#8217;s&#8221; were missing for her team in this situation. It&#8217;s hard to understand why any organization would fail to make good choices that let them build quality in. Unfortunately, some simply don&#8217;t understand the value of investing in quality.</p>
<p>It was surprising to hear Angie describe anything less than a success story. What is so valuable about this story were her many lessons learned. We can all learn from her story and potentially find ways to get teams engaged in creating testable software.</p>
<p>True leaders like Angie aren&#8217;t afraid to share failure stories as well as success stories. As I attended subsequent sessions at the conference, I&#8217;d learn about a new idea, and think about the ways it could help with the scenario Angie described. Angie had such creative ideas for testing in production, automatically generating test users, automatically updating a field in the database to facilitate the testing without affecting actual customers. If she could have gotten one more bit of help from teams outside her own, she&#8217;d have been able to easily check the functionality.</p>
<p>I felt that Angie&#8217;s larger message was that a whole team approach to building quality (including testability) in, with support for automation that enables the team to succeed with testing, is key. When the whole team works together to try new experiments and see what helps them progress their quality goals, the magic happens.</p>
<p><strong>Valuable lessons learned</strong></p>
<p>I&#8217;ve been extremely lucky in my career to mostly work on teams that were allowed to take time to learn and solve problems, including finding good ways to support testing and quality with automation.I have lots of success stories to tell. But as with Angie&#8217;s keynote, maybe the failure stories are eve more powerful.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve also worked on teams where the culture worked against collaboration across all teams and roles within teams. Even when I led a successful agile project within the company, people were unable to let go of the way they were used to working. That way wasn&#8217;t working, the product was failing as a result, but I think they were so stressed out they just clung to something familiar. I used patterns from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/More-Fearless-Change-Strategies-Making/dp/0133966445">More Fearless Chang</a>e that usually work for me, but I failed in that organization. I bailed for an opportunity to work on a self-organizing Scrum team, where our whole team worked step-by-step to succeed with test automation. The lessons I had learned from my &#8220;failure&#8221; helped me contribute more in my new team.</p>
<p>We&#8217;re always hearing how failing is good and we shouldn&#8217;t be afraid to experiment. However, in some company cultures, it isn&#8217;t safe to fail. If you&#8217;re working in that type of environment, see if you can be an agent for change. And if you can&#8217;t get any change going, see if you can find a better opportunity. Whatever happens, don&#8217;t beat yourself up for failures. Our most appreciated leaders also fail sometimes. You&#8217;ll be a better team member in the future if you can see a failure as learning from an experiment.</p>
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<p>The post <a href="https://lisacrispin.com/2019/02/19/learning-from-hitting-a-brick-wall/" rel="nofollow">Learning from hitting a brick wall</a> appeared first on <a href="https://lisacrispin.com" rel="nofollow">Agile Testing with Lisa Crispin</a>.</p>